Senior Research Analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald
Jonathan Ruykhaver is a Senior Research Analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., specializing in the coverage of cybersecurity and cloud technology companies including Palo Alto Networks, JFrog, Check Point Software Technologies, Varonis Systems, CyberArk Software, and Fortinet. He consistently maintains a strong performance record, with a 24.6% average return and approximately 62-63% success rate according to recent analyst ratings metrics, earning a 4.38-star ranking among nearly 5,000 analysts. Ruykhaver began his financial analyst career at Morgan Keegan & Co. prior to joining Cantor Fitzgerald in 2024, bringing extensive research expertise in the sector. He holds active professional credentials in securities analysis and maintains FINRA registration as required for senior equity research analysts.
Jonathan Ruykhaver inquired about the AI-driven connector integration and its potential to enable more intelligent and automated actions.
CEO Mark McClain emphasized the importance of tight alignment with deep entitlement data in the agent world and tying identity, data, and security.
Jonathan Ruykhaver from Cantor Fitzgerald asked about CrowdStrike's strategy for "shifting left" in cloud security, inquiring if the company plans to move further into the development stage beyond its current application and container scanning capabilities.
Founder & CEO George Kurtz affirmed the value of moving left to catch issues before production. He mentioned that CrowdStrike has already invested in this area with technologies like ASPM and container scanning to identify vulnerabilities and manage golden images. He believes the AI story will be a big part of this, helping to understand interdependencies in build environments. Kurtz concluded that CrowdStrike continues to invest in this area and that its existing AI elements will be helpful in solving future challenges.
Jonathan Ruykhaver of Cantor Fitzgerald asked for Okta's view on whether Privileged Access Management (PAM) can be delivered cost-effectively to all employees and how the Acxiom acquisition fits into a strategy of deploying PAM broadly across both human and non-human identities.
CEO Todd McKinnon agreed that every identity and resource requires a secure experience, which is what Okta aims to provide comprehensively. He pivoted to the importance of neutrality, recounting a CISO's need for an identity platform that connects to all their disparate security tools (e.g., CrowdStrike, Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks), which he identified as a core strength and winning formula for Okta.
Jonathan Ruykhaver asked about the opportunity around JFrog's MCP server for securing AI agents, its competitive positioning, and whether the target market is foundational model providers or enterprises.
CEO Shlomi Ben Haim described the MCP server as a critical integration point for all AI agents to interact with the JFrog platform. He noted that as MCP adoption grows, so do the associated threats, positioning JFrog's security research as a key differentiator. He clarified the opportunity applies to any company using any type of agentic AI, not a specific segment.
Jonathan Ruykhaver asked for perspective on how heightened competition among AI platforms, such as OpenAI's M&A activity, might impact the repository opportunity for JFrog and whether it would drive more strategic partnerships.
CEO Shlomi Haim viewed the developments positively, stating 'the more the merrier.' He explained that AI code-generation tools do not overlap with JFrog's core offerings like model registry, binary management, or model security scanning. He currently sees the trend leading to more collaboration and synergy rather than direct competition.
Jonathan Ruykhaver of Cantor Fitzgerald inquired about the sales motion and any specific incentives driving the strong new enterprise platform and six-figure customer additions, and asked about the outlook for new ads versus expansion.
Co-CEO Mark Thurmond stated that there were no major structural or compensation changes. He attributed the success to the market's adoption of the Tenable One platform, a loyal and increasingly comfortable channel, strong pipeline growth, and validation from third-party analysts. He emphasized that the company's 100% channel model is a key factor in this momentum.
Jonathan Ruykhaver asked about the go-to-market strategy for Varonis's new Database Activity Monitoring (DAM) offering, specifically whether it's positioned as a replacement for legacy vendors or as part of a broader data security platform.
CEO Yaki Faitelson explained that the strategy is both. The offering was developed in response to customer demand to replace legacy vendors who they felt had not innovated. He stated that customers want a single, coherent data security platform, and Varonis is positioned to capitalize on a significant replacement cycle for these legacy DAM tools.
Jonathan Ruykhaver from Cantor Fitzgerald asked about the most differentiating features in the upcoming GitLab 18 release and the rationale for including Duo features in existing tiers without an additional charge.
CEO Bill Staples explained that including Duo Chat and Code Suggestions in Premium and Ultimate is a strategic decision to eliminate adoption friction and make GitLab an obvious choice for AI. This approach, with usage limits, creates a smooth upgrade path. For GitLab 18, he highlighted centralized artifact management, CI/CD enhancements, and improved security dashboards as key differentiators, alongside a new AI vision.
Jonathan Ruykhaver from Cantor Fitzgerald asked about Rubrik Anapurna in the context of GenAI projects failing due to disparate data stores, and how Rubrik specifically differentiates in real-time data identification and classification.
Co-Founder, CEO & Chairman Bipul Sinha explained that Rubrik's platform was built from the beginning to combine data management and security, requiring a deep understanding of data integrity and sensitivity. This foundational capability is now being leveraged for GenAI through the Anapurna initiative, which aims to supply secure, governed data to LLM applications. He stressed that Anapurna is a long-term, multi-year effort to build a new 'S-curve' for the company, positioning Rubrik at the intersection of data security and AI as part of its long-term vision.