The founder of Snyk has stepped down from the company’s board almost a decade after the cybersecurity firm first launched.

Guy Podjarny, who set up the business in July 2015 and became its first CEO, transitioned to the role of company president in 2019 before taking a less active role on the firm’s board in February 2024, when he launched a new company called Tessl. He stood down as a director of Snyk at the end of last month, company filings show.

In a statement, Snyk CEO Peter McKay told UKTN: “Having established our mission and the foundational elements of our strong culture, Guy will always be an important part of the Snyk story.

“While he continues to serve in an advisor capacity, we mutually decided the time was right for him to step away from his formal board member duties to focus on growing Tessl.”

Founding Snyk helped propel Guy Podjarny, or Guypo as he is known to colleagues, to become one of the most successful tech entrepreneurs in London, after a December 2022 funding round valued Snyk at $7.4bn (£5.8bn). The round gave Podjarny an estimated net worth of more than £600m.

The serial entrepreneur’s success continued with the launch of AI-powered software development platform Tessl, which raised $125m after completing a series A funding round in November last year.

Speaking at the State of Open Con in February, Podjarny said Snyk “continues to do well but I got drawn into the world of AI, and I’m an addict and I wanted to get back to an entrepreneur path on it.”

On the subject of the growth of and advances in the AI industry, he added: “I think there’s a lot of reasons to think that there will additional leaps…more people can participate in the invention attempt where before the gate of capital was very high.”

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