Network Security, Built by the People Who've Done It Before
Firecradle is a product of TakeLAN, a Tampa-based tech company. It was designed by engineers with over 20 years of hands-on networking, firewall, and security experience. These are people who wrote packet-filtering engines and shipped network security products before this one.
We did not start with a pitch deck.
We started with a problem.
What We Stand For
These are not values written by a committee. They are choices we made between the easy path and the right one. They shape every design decision, every price, and every line of code.
Cradle
"We have been in the war room. We know what vendors promise, and what actually works."
"If a non-specialist cannot deploy it in 30 minutes, we have not finished building it."
"One price. Every feature. No asterisks."
"Not a premium tier. Not a checkbox. The baseline."
"A detection engine you cannot explain is not security - it is a guess."
"We publish cost comparisons. They show where we are the cheapest, and where we are not."
Built by Practitioners
20+ years of hands-on network security engineering on this team"We have been in the war room. We know what vendors promise, and what actually works."
Every person who designed Firecradle has personally locked down a network under pressure. The zone-based rule engine, the 30-minute setup wizard, and the signature-based detection engine are real examples. They were not dreamed up in a meeting. They came from hard experience.
Simplicity is an Engineering Standard
Auto-discovers interfaces, applies deny-by-default policy, configures VLANs - before coffee"If a non-specialist cannot deploy it in 30 minutes, we have not finished building it."
We refuse to pass complexity on to customers. Our setup wizard asks you three questions. Then it sets up interfaces, VLANs, and a deny-by-default policy on its own. That is not a demo trick. That is the actual product.
No Hidden Costs. Full Stop.
VPN, cloud mgmt, and HA failover all included at base price"One price. Every feature. No asterisks."
VPN is not a paid tier. Cloud management is not a plugin. Multi-site failover is not an extra add-on. The industry turned features into extra revenue lines. We decided not to. The price you see on day one is the same price on year three.
Security as Default State
Deny-by-default: nothing passes unless a rule explicitly allows it"Not a premium tier. Not a checkbox. The baseline."
Every appliance ships with deny-by-default firewall rules, TLS 1.3 encryption everywhere, and deep packet inspection. It also has a hardened Ubuntu base image. You do not configure security in Firecradle. It is already on.
Detection You Can Audit
Signature and rule-based detection - inspectable, not a black box"A detection engine you cannot explain is not security - it is a guess."
We build detection you can inspect, not marketing about "AI-powered" security. Every alert traces back to one rule or signature you can read, tune, and trust. There is no hidden model deciding what counts as a threat on your network. Every design choice starts with one question: can a network engineer explain why this fired?
Radical Honesty
Full 3-year TCO breakdowns published, including competitor numbers"We publish cost comparisons. They show where we are the cheapest, and where we are not."
If a competitor does something better, we say so. If a feature is on the roadmap and not yet shipped, we say so. If a configuration will not work for your use case, we tell you before you buy. Trust is built on truth - and truth compounds.
Leadership Team
People who have built network security systems - not just sold them.
Derek Demuro
Chief Technology OfficerArchitect. Builder. 20+ years in networking & network security.
Derek has spent over two decades building enterprise network, firewall, and security systems. He didn't just analyze these systems - he built them. He co-founded Replibit, an appliance company later bought by Axcient. There, he spent nearly four years building distributed filesystems, high-availability systems, and virtualization tools in C++ and Python, at the core engine level.
Over his career, Derek has led engineering for firewall systems, DNS threat protection, identity and login systems, and threat intelligence platforms. He has worked at every layer, from kernel-level filesystems and network stacks to global systems.
At Firecradle, Derek designed and built the whole platform. This includes the deny-by-default policy engine, the connection tracking and deep packet inspection pipeline, the VLAN and routing stack, and the signature-based threat detection engine. It turned two decades of engineering experience into one unified appliance.
Andrew Bensinger
Chief Executive OfficerOperator. Builder. 20+ years at the intersection of infrastructure and engineering.
Andrew has over 20 years building and growing network products and teams. His career spans product leadership, systems work, and go-to-market work. He holds 3 US patents in data resiliency tech, covering automated image tools and high-availability mirroring systems.
As VP of Engineering, Andrew led teams that built resilient systems for managed service providers and enterprises. That's the same audience Firecradle serves today. His deep background in reliable systems and automation shapes every design decision Firecradle makes.
As CEO of Firecradle, Andrew turns two decades of hands-on experience into product strategy and customer success. He makes sure every feature solves a real problem. He also keeps Firecradle's total cost of ownership the best story in the industry.
Bruno Bense
Customer Engineering LeadEngineering practitioner. Customer advocate. Bridges product, support, and delivery.
Bruno has a decade of hands-on work in network systems and big-company IT platforms. His background runs through the same tech and teams that shaped Firecradle. He moved up from junior software engineer to escalation engineer at a leading enterprise IT platform. He worked on both the front-end and back-end of the flagship product, and built PXE deployments that cut hardware costs for partners. He also built a tool to fix broken Windows machines from a Linux toolkit. It is the same kind of deep, tricky problem the Firecradle team still solves today.
Before software, Bruno spent three years in network consulting. He helped enterprise clients with network design and keeping their services running. That same focus drives Firecradle's multi-site and high-availability design today. Bruno is based in Montevideo, Uruguay, as part of TakeLAN's engineering hub supporting Firecradle's development and global operations.
Bruno Demuro
Chief Operating OfficerFounder. Operator. From surgical AI to wildfire detection - scale through execution.
Bruno Demuro is a serial entrepreneur with over a decade of experience building and growing tech companies from zero revenue. In 2015, he co-founded Armor Bionics, a medical AI company. It built a cloud platform that turns CT and MRI scans into 3D-printable surgical planning models. The company grew to a $3.5M annual revenue pipeline, with partners like IBM, Ricoh, and Stratasys. He also founded Domotics, growing it from a $25K investment to $300K in revenue and over 5,000 customers, in under two years.
As COO of TheDevBlock, Bruno drove a 400% revenue increase in one year. He built a new product line from scratch, improving conversion rates by 50 times. He also led operations, recruiting, and KPI systems across the company. Bruno has deep roots at TakeLAN, where he has been part of the team since 2010. He brings both entrepreneurial drive and operational discipline to help Firecradle scale.
At Microsoft's AI for Good Lab, Bruno leads hardware and program management. He works on an open-source AI and IoT system used across four continents for real-time environmental monitoring. He is also a TEDx speaker, recognized for advancing value-based healthcare through AI.
Advisors
People who've been in the trenches. They help us stay focused on what MSPs actually need.
John Hardwick
AdvisorMSP owner. 22+ years running managed IT services. Real-world network security in the field.
John is President of nXio, LLC. He has run this MSP since 2004, out of Lenexa, Kansas. For over two decades, he has managed IT systems for business clients. That covers networking, security, firewalls, and cloud services. John is exactly the kind of customer Firecradle is built for. Before nXio, he built Citrix and Active Directory systems for 500+ remote users at EPIC Alliance. He also built Microsoft and Citrix setups serving 2,000+ users at Imago ASP Systems. His hands-on view of what MSPs actually need keeps the Firecradle roadmap honest.
A TakeLAN Product
Firecradle is part of the TakeLAN product family, a Tampa-based software company founded in 2010. TakeLAN builds deep, connected tech products. They are made to cut day-to-day work for managed service providers and clients. Every product shares the same approach: real engineering, clear pricing, and a strong focus on simplicity.
TakeLAN Product Ecosystem