Cybersecurity

Cyware nets $10M as cybersecurity takes on new meaning in COVID-19 era

Global cybersecurity market is expected to reach $326.4 billion by 2027

Cyware, a threat intelligence and cyber fusion solutions provider, on Tuesday morning announced a $10M series A round of funding.

Prelude Ventures – the venture practice at Mercato Partners – and Tanium, co-led the financing, which also included participation from Cyware’s seed investors, Emerald Development Managers and Great Road Holdings. Founded in 2016, Cyware is a product-based B2B cybersecurity software company that has developed products around threat intelligence analysis/sharing, threat/incident response, security orchestration and automation (SOAR).

The raise is among the latest for cybersecurity companies, which are seeing increased investor interest in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Also on Tuesday, SpyCloud landed a $30 million Series C round to power its account takeover prevention and fraud investigations tools. And, VentureBeat reported today that Keeper Security, which has developed a platform aims to prevent password-related breaches and cyberthreats, expects to close on a $60 million round this week.

There’s no doubt that hackers have been busy during the pandemic, taking advantage of an increasingly distributed workforce. With more employees working from home and using more unsecured networks and personal devices, organizations and enterprises are naturally more vulnerable to cyberattacks. (High-profile cases in point: Zoom and Twitter. Need I say more?)

In fact, the global cybersecurity market size is expected to reach $326.4 billion by 2027, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.0% from 2020 to 2027, according to a recent study conducted by Grand View Research Inc. 

The cyber threat landscape is continuously evolving with the advancement in technologies such as blockchain technologies, online payment transaction models, digital file-sharing platforms, and digital collaboration and marketing tools, the report added.

Some companies are trying to treat the problem preventatively. For example, Ananda Networks unveiled Tuesday its Secure Global LAN (SG-LAN), which it describes as the first cloud-managed service that allows organizations to create their own private networks. The company also raised $6 million in seed funding from a group of investors including MizMaa Ventures, Citrix Systems, and others.

Startup sees increased demand

We caught up with Anuj Goel, CEO and co-founder of Cyware, who told FinLedger the New York-based company has “grown aggressively” and expanded its portfolio since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Headcount has more than doubled over the last year and currently stands at 130. 

Cyware’s clients have also grown  – by over 200% over the last year, according to Goel. They include Fortune 500 financial, healthcare, energy and defense organizations, multinational retail corporations, trade associations, industry groups (including ISACs and ISAOs), nonprofits and government agencies. 

“We have a sector-agnostic client base,” Goel said. “Cybersecurity is the need of the hour of every sector, be it private, government, or information sharing communities. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the ground realities of the security threat landscape and has forced organizations to rethink their security strategies.”

And while Cyware is seeing increased demand for our products and solutions from all sectors and all geographies, it has seen particularly strong interest from financial services and healthcare organizations, according to Goel.

Cyberattacks “are increasingly sophisticated and damaging” in the COVID-19 era, noted Zach Sivertson, managing director at Prelude.

Silvertson told FinLedger that his firm was drawn to Cyware because it believes the startup differentiates itself from the competition by bringing together four “complex” market verticals and “integrating them into a single suite of product offerings that work together seamlessly.”

“This is not easy to do,” he added.

In general, he pointed out that (as mentioned above) COVID-19 is encouraging a more distributed workforce and technology stack, which makes cyber monitoring and response more difficult. 

“Incident Response teams must bring together data from disparate sources, and quickly react to prevent and respond to cyber incidents all while being remote,” he said. “The era of backhauling traffic and large on-premise data centers are over. Teams that are adapting and using the latest incident response and orchestration tools will have a large advantage in the remote world.”

Cyware plans to use the new capital to expand its sales and marketing teams, “double down on customer success” and continue development of existing Cyware products, such as its situational awareness platform (CSAP), threat intelligence eXchange (CTIX), security orchestration layer (CSOL) and fusion and threat response (CFTR).

Stay tuned as we’ll continue to pay attention to this space.

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