09 Apr VC Report, Vol. 2, No. 2: Cybersecurity VC Funding Strong And Steady In Second Quarter Of 2017
Menlo Park, Calif. – Jun. 30, 2017
Deal flow was strong and steady in Q2 2017. Notably, there was a significant number of deals with seed funding, indicating that cybersecurity remains an ever-growing industry with continuous potential for newcomers.
Seed funding didn’t dominate the market, as there was a solid balance of small-scale investment and multi-million dollar funding for established industry players during the second quarter.
“Cybercrime damages are predicted to reach $6 trillion annually by 2021, and security spending is expected to exceed $1 trillion cumulatively over the next 5 years” says Steve Morgan, founder and Editor-In-Chief at Cybersecurity Ventures. “Late last year we predicted that VCs would take another big bite into cyber firms during 2017. The investment activity during the first half of this year confirms our speculation.”
June
Jun. 27. Awz HLS Fund, a Canadian venture capital firm focused on security and intelligence technologies, has invested $5.25 million in Israeli startup Octopus Systems, a cloud-based security platform.
Jun. 27. JASK, which provides companies with software to monitor cyber threats, came out of stealth today and announced funding of $12 million in a round co-led by Dell Technologies Capital and TenEleven Ventures. Existing investors Battery Ventures and Vertical Venture Partners also joined.
Jun. 27. Canadian Beauceron Security, a cybersecurity developer, raised a $500,000 seed round of funding, led by East Valley Ventures and Mariner Partners, and included $150,000 from the New Brunswick Innovation Fund.
Jun. 26. SparkCognition, which uses machine learning to analyze security breaches, completed a $32.5 million Series B funding round, with investment from Verizon Ventures and Boeing’s HorizonX.
Jun. 26. Upstream Security, a cloud-based cybersecurity platform, raised $2 million in seed funding led by Gilot Capital Partners.
Jun. 21. GreatHorn secured $6.3 million in Series A funding from TechStars Ventures and .406 Ventures.
Jun. 21. Elevate Security, a platform that focuses on shifting human behavior and responses to security threats to prevent breaches, announced $2 million in seed funding from Costanoa Ventures and Webb Investment Network.
Jun. 21. Cybereason, a Boston-based cybersecurity firm specializing in end-point detection and response to digital security breaches, announced it secured a $100 million funding from Japanese telecommunications firm SoftBank Corp.
Jun. 14. California-based cybersecurity company Fortanix announced its $8 million Series A round with investment from Foundation Capital and NeoTribe.
Jun. 8. Obsidian Security, a newly formed cybersecurity firm in Newport Beach, raised $9.5 million in a funding round led by Greylock Partners.
Jun. 7. Adaptive cybersecurity company Illumio closed on $125 million funding, with investment from Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Data Collective and Accel, among others.
Jun. 7. Israeli cyber security startup Minerva announced a $7.5 million financing round led by Amplify Partners.
Jun. 7. Parisian cyber-startup CybelAngel recently raised €3 million from Serena Data Ventures.
Jun. 6. Cybersecurity firm Netskope announced that it has raised $100 million from existing and new investors. The Series E round was led by existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Accel. Sapphire Ventures and Geodesic Capital also participated.
Jun. 1. Austin-based cybersecurity company SpyCloud came out of stealth mode with $2.5 million in investment. Silverton Partners and March Capital Partners participated in the investment.
May
May 30. NetGuardians announced a Series C investment of CHF 8.5 million. The investors in this Series C Funding are Swisscom Ventures and Freemont Management.
May 30. CounterTack, provider of the memory-based Endpoint Threat Platform, announced that it has raised $20 million in growth funding. The Series D round is led by new CounterTack investor Singtel Innov8, along with SAP National Security Services, also a new investor in CounterTack
May 16. Israeli startup Karamba Security, a provider of cybersecurity for connected and self-driving cars, raised $12 million, attracting investment from Washington-based cyber-focused Paladin Capital.
May 16. Rubica, a company focused on personal cyber security, raised $5.6M seed series funding from backers including Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Slow Ventures, Upfront Ventures, TrueCar and Expa.
May 16. Mocana Corporation, a provider of mission-critical IoT security solutions for industrial control systems and the Internet of Things, announced that the company has received $11 million in additional investment from Sway Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Trident Capital Fund and GE Ventures.
May 11. IoTium, a secure network infrastructure company for the Industrial Internet of Things, announced that it has closed $8.39 million in Series A financing. This investment is led by March Capital Partners and GE Ventures.
May 11. Skeyecode received an undisclosed amount of seed funding from 500 Startups.
May 10. Attivo Networks, a leader in deception for cybersecurity defense, announced it has closed $15M in Series B round funding, made up by major investors including Omidyar Technology Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Trident Capital Cybersecurity and Macnica Ventures.
May 9. Signal Sciences, a startup that wants to help companies secure their web apps in a modern DevOps context, announced a $15 million round today led by CRV with participation from Harrison Metal, Index Ventures and OATV.
May 9. Vera, a pioneer in data-centric security enabling businesses of all types and sizes to secure, track and share any type of data, announced a $15 million strategic investment led by Hasso Plattner Ventures.
May 9. RedLock, a cloud and cyber security player, emerged from stealth and announced their Series A Round of funding. Sierra Ventures is a lead investor in the $12 million total raised.
May 9. Security solutions startup Sequretek IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Unicorn India Ventures and GVFL Ltd.
May 9. UBiqube PLC, which operates in the networking and security industry, announced that it has secured a Series A round from Fujitsu Limited, NTT Docomo Ventures, and Fortinet, Inc.
May 8. London, England-based cyber software insurance company Corax received $1.75 million in seed funding from undisclosed backers.
May 8. Polyverse Corporation, a Washington-based cybersecurity company, secured an additional $2m in funding. The backers were not disclosed.
May 5. Cybersecurity firm VST Enterprises closed its fourth round of funding, securing £11.4 million from a collection of private investors. CEO Louis-James Davis remains the lead shareholder via LJ Holdings & Investments.
May 4. Signifyd, which specializes in e-commerce fraud, has closed a $56 million Series C investment led by Bain Capital Ventures. Menlo Ventures and American Express also participated in the round.
April
Apr. 26. 802 Secure, which operates in the Internet of Things defence market, received investment of $6 million to develop its two core products from Daylight Investors.
Apr. 25. Twistlock, a provider of cloud security solutions, raised $17M Series B funding, led by Polaris Partners, with participation from existing investors YL Ventures, TenEleven and Rally Ventures.
Apr. 19. Dome9 Security, a cloud infrastructure security company, announced the close of $16.5 million in Series C funding, led by a new investor, SoftBank Corp. Existing investors also participated in this round, bringing the total funding in Dome9 to $29 million.
Apr. 18. NetSPI, a security testing and vulnerability correlation company, announced the completion of a strategic growth equity financing, let by Sunstone Partners.
Apr. 18. CyberGRX, a provider of third-party cyber risk management platform, announced that it has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP).
Apr. 18. CLEAR announced that it raised $15 million from existing investors, including T. Rowe Price. Past investors include Delta Airlines, Priceline Chairman Jeffery H. Boyd, Priceline former CFO Robert Mylod, Sterling VC, and LMM Chairman Bill Miller.
Apr. 18. Cyber-security solutions provider Innefu Labs Pvt. Ltd announced that it has raised $2 million in a series A round of funding from venture capital fund IndiaNivesh.
Apr. 17. Zinc announced an $11 million funding round led by a strategic investment from GE Ventures with participation from Hearst Ventures, with the aim of transforming deskless communication.
Apr. 13. ClearDATA, an Austin, Texas-based managed cloud provider for healthcare security, raised $12m in funding. Backers included Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Norwest Venture Partners, Excel Venture Management, Heritage Group, HLM Venture Partners, and Flare Capital Partners.
Apr. 11. Synack, a cybersecurity startup that helps businesses prevent and counter security breaches, announced new funding of $21.25 million, led by Microsoft Ventures.
Apr. 11. PAS, a provider of industrial control system (ICS) cybersecurity, process safety, and asset reliability solutions for the energy, power, and process industries, announced a $40 million growth investment by Tinicum, L.P.
Apr. 5. Armor, the first company to offer a secure hosted cloud, closed an $89 million equity financing round led by ST Telemedia (STT).
Apr. 5. Aeriandi, a leading supplier of voice security solutions, received an investment of £1.5 million growth capital from BOOST&Co.
Apr. 5. Critical Informatics, a Washington-based cybersecurity company offering solutions for mid-sized companies in the financial services, healthcare and public sectors, announced a $3.25 million Series A funding round led by Alan Frazier’s East Seattle Partners.
Apr. 5. CheckRecipient, a machine learning startup that aiming to end the problem of misaddressed emails once raised $2.7 million in a round co-led by Accel and LocalGlobe, with the participation of Winton Ventures, Amadeus Capital Partners and Crane.
Apr. 4. SlashNext, a California-based startup that provides a cloud-based program that uses machine learning to stop malware and socially engineered attacks, announced today new funding of $9 million. The round was led by Norwest Venture Partners and Wing Venture Capital.
Apr. 4. Next-generation security information and event management and big data analytics platform LogPoint announced it secured $10 million in Series B funding from Evolution Equity Partners.
Cybersecurity Ventures expects to see significant VC and corporate investor deal flow in the cybersecurity space for the remainder of 2017.
– Morag McGreevey is a freelance writer covering cybersecurity, national security, VC deals, and investing.
