dope.security is an American

cybersecurity Computer security (also cybersecurity, digital security, or information technology (IT) security) is a subdiscipline within the field of information security. It consists of the protection of computer software, systems and networks from thr ...

company founded in 2021. Based in Mountain View and

Cork "Cork" or "CORK" may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Stopper (plug), or "cork", a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container *** Wine cork an item to seal or reseal wine Places Ireland * ...

, the company focuses on secure web gateways.

History

dope.security was founded by former

Forcepoint Forcepoint is an American multinational corporation software company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that develops computer security software and data protection, cloud access security broker, firewall and cross-domain solutions. Forcepoint was ...

and

Symantec Symantec may refer to: * Gen Digital, an American consumer software company formerly known as Symantec * Symantec Security, a brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, ...

software engineer Kunal Agarwal on May 4, 2021. Following the shift of many companies to

remote work Remote work (also called telecommuting, telework, work from or at home, WFH as an initialism, hybrid work, and other terms) is the practice of work (human activity), working at or from one's home or Third place, another space rather than from ...

following the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, Agarwal founded dope.security to adapt secure web gateways to a growing market of workers accessing company servers through

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

or home Internet rather than centralized office networks. Speaking with

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high tech, high-tech and Startup company, startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. I ...

, Agarwal recalled that during his engineering career, he encountered customers who complained about outages and other performance issues from existing secure web gateways that relied on data centers. In September 2022, Boldstart Ventures provided the initial $4 million

seed investment Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' suggest ...

for dope.security, which began operations with 30 employees. With its headquarters in Mountain View,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, dope.security also has operations in

, Ireland.

Google Ventures GV Management Company, L.L.C. (file no. 4726690) is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides seed, venture, and growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Ventures in 2010, th ...

, Boldstart Ventures, and Preface helped raise an additional $16 million to fund internal, endpoint-based secure web gateway technology development for dope.security in March 2023. In July 2025, the company enhanced its Secure Web Gateway (SWG) to limit access to the consumer version of ChatGPT, ensuring that employees on corporate networks can only use the enterprise-licensed edition.

Products

The main dope.security product is the Fly Direct Secure Web Gateway (dope.swg), which is based at a

communication endpoint A communication endpoint is a type of Node (networking), communication network node. It is an interface exposed by a communicating party or by a communication channel. An example of the latter type of a communication endpoint is a publish–subscr ...

rather than stopover data centers. The

zero trust security model Zero trust architecture (ZTA) or perimeterless security is a design and implementation strategy of IT systems. The principle is that users and devices should not be trusted by default, even if they are connected to a privileged network such as a ...

of dope.swg is compatible with

Office 365 Microsoft 365 (previously called Office 365) is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs form ...

and

Google Workspace Google Workspace (formerly G Suite, formerly Google Apps) is a collection of cloud computing, Productivity software, productivity and Collaborative software, collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. It con ...

References

{{security-software-stub Companies based in San Francisco 2021 establishments in California Software companies based in California