21 Mar Who’s Who Of Venture Capital Firms In Cybersecurity

15 hot VC firms we’re following in 2023

– Steve Morgan, Editor-in-Chief

Sausalito, Calif. – Mar. 21, 2023

Cybersecurity startup founders and CEOs often ask us “who’s who” when it comes to venture capital.

An exhaustive list of venture capital firms globally can be found in our daily VC report. These investors lead and participate in all levels of funding rounds for fledgling companies, emerging players and highfliers.

A Cybersecurity Ventures go-to authority, Richard Seewald, founder and managing partner at Evolution Equity Partners, one of the most respected VC firms in the cybersecurity space, joins us every quarter to provide Cybercrime Radio listeners with invaluable market insights from an investor’s perspective.

Seewald’s investments include top names in cybersecurity such as SecurityScorecard, SNYK, Talon Cyber, Pentera, CarbonBlack, Quantexa, and AVG Technologies.

Other top cybersecurity VCs have generously contributed to our media, including Bob Ackerman, founder and managing director at AllegisCapital, and Dave DeWalt, founder and CEO at NightDragon.

So, who’s who in venture capital and what’s their elevator pitch?

Cybercrime Radio: Richard Seewald on the Cybersecurity Market

Looking back, looking ahead.

HOT VC FIRMS IN CYBERSECURITY

Here’s 15 venture capital firms the editors at Cybercrime Magazine are following in 2023, and you should too.

• Accel, Palo Alto, Calif. Accel is a leading venture capital firm that invests in people and their companies from the earliest days through all phases of private company growth. Atlassian, Braintree, Cloudera, CrowdStrike, DJI, Dropbox, Dropcam, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, FreshWorks, Jet, Qualtrics, Slack, Spotify, Supercell, UiPath and Vox Media are among the companies the firm has backed over the past 35 years.
• AllegisCyber Capital, Palo Alto, Calif. AllegisCyber Capital is the original cyber-focused venture firm. They started at the forefront of building, operating, and investing over two decades ago. And they’ve stayed on the front lines every day since. That’s their domain. They do one thing. They do it with everything they have. They do it with the best people in the industry. They help build great cyber companies.
• Ballistic Ventures, San Francisco, Calif. Ballistic Ventures is dedicated to funding and incubating innovations in cybersecurity. They believe that the most important action they can take today is to fuel the ideas of the world’s greatest cybersecurity entrepreneurs with their collective experience, network, and passion. The Ballistic Ventures team has a deep, nuanced understanding of the cyber landscape from spending their careers defending digital sovereignty.
• Evolution Equity Partners, New York, N.Y. Evolution Equity Partners is an international venture capital investor partnering with exceptional entrepreneurs to develop market-leading cybersecurity and enterprise software companies. The firm is managed by investment and technology entrepreneurs who have built companies around the world and leverage their operating, technical and product development expertise to help entrepreneurs win.
• ForgePoint Capital, San Mateo, Calif. Forgepoint Capital invests in and partners with exceptional entrepreneurs defining and tackling the biggest challenges in cybersecurity and infrastructure software. Forgepoint’s diverse team draws upon nearly a century of combined experience in cybersecurity and infrastructure software. They support their entrepreneurs and make connections to the customers, government agencies, strategic partners, and investors who matter.
• Greylock, Menlo Park, Calif. Greylock’s mission is to help realize rare potential. They believe it’s essential to be trusted partners to entrepreneurs at every stage — from idea to IPO. They understand the entrepreneur’s journey; most of them have been down that road. They love to dig in early to help entrepreneurs build important, valuable companies. It’s why they love what they do, and why they are always looking for the next team with rare potential.
• Insight Partners, New York, N.Y. For over  25 years, Insight Partners has helped leaders turn their vision into reality faster and more seamlessly than would be possible alone. As the trusted partner for more than 600 transformative companies, their deeply experienced software operators, and their flexible capital across every stage of growth, provides everything leaders need to fly faster and further.

• Lightspeed Ventures, Menlo Park, Calif. Companies that work with Lightspeed are afforded numerous value-added benefits. Through their CIO Forum, founders have access to executive insights and networking opportunities, while their Talent team offers recruiting services and matchmaking expertise. And they support founders and their teams on marketing and communications strategies, helping architect their narrative, from brand ideation to IPO planning.
• NightDragon, San Francisco, Calif. NightDragon seeks to close the gap between offense and defense by deploying capital and expertise towards companies providing leading solutions to better protect governments, organizations and individuals. NightDragon is more than a traditional venture capital firm. They back companies solving meaningful missions and accelerate them into market-leading organizations.
• Paladin Capital Group, Washington, D.C. Paladin is a leading global investor that supports and grows the world’s most innovative companies through venture investment, expansion, and growth capital. Their team merges financial expertise with national security and technical competence to add value across a wide array of market sectors and company stages. Paladin brings decades of experience, advice, access, and relationships to its portfolio companies.
• Sequoia, Menlo Park, Calif. Sequoia’s team mirrors the founders with whom they partner: hungry overachievers with a deep-rooted need to win. Many come from humble backgrounds. Many are immigrants. Many formed or built companies of their own before joining Sequoia. Each shares the mindset of an entrepreneur, and knows what it means to walk that path. We help the daring build legendary companies, from idea to IPO and beyond.
• SYN Ventures, West Palm Beach, Fla. SYN Ventures invests in disruptive, transformational solutions that reduce technology risk. They are former CISOs of Fortune 500 companies, and have successfully invested in and exited some of the most prominent cybersecurity companies operating today. Their operational background gives them a unique understanding of the market, the tech, and the challenges that founders face.
• Team8, Tel-Aviv, Israel. Building technology companies to real market success is an exciting, but volatile process. Too often, entrepreneurs face limited reach to end customers and lack access to deep research capabilities and specialized talent. These are challenges that capital alone can’t solve. Team8’s model was built around the belief that they could improve the odds for entrepreneurs but also develop the right solutions for enterprises.
• Ten Eleven, Burlingame, Calif. Ten Eleven exists to provide high-value, cyber-focused counsel, capital and connections to brilliant security entrepreneurs. The firm understands the unique problems security entrepreneurs face. Decades spent deep in the trenches of cybersecurity have created the deep bench of experiences, relationships and specific domain expertise that Ten Eleven is passing along to the next wave of security innovators.
• YL Ventures, Tel-Aviv, Israel. YL Ventures funds and supports brilliant Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs from seed to lead. Cybersecurity is YL Ventures’ exclusive focus and area of expertise. Extensive experience and deep knowledge allow them to recognize the earliest signs of trends and opportunities to make smart and fast decisions when time-to-market matters most. Portfolio companies harness a global network of Venture Advisors.

Cybercrime Magazine will be expanding our coverage of venture capital firms and this list in 2024.

– Steve Morgan is founder and Editor-in-Chief at Cybersecurity Ventures.

Go here to read all of my blogs and articles covering cybersecurity. Go here to send me story tips, feedback and suggestions.