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💰 Security, Funded #107 - Space Invaders Meet Fund Raisers: A Galactic Game of Gains! 👾

A review of cybersecurity funding and industry news from the week of August 14th, 2023.

Author

Mike Privette
August 21, 2023 • Reading Time: 11 minutes

Hey there,

Happy Monday, and I hope you had a great weekend!

🏃‍♂️ The Rundown - A meta roundup of all the important things in this issue:

  • ✅ Vibe checking

  • 👀 Palo Alto made you look

  • 🦹 UN Cybercrime Convention

  • 🛰️ Satellite Hacking in a DEFCON win

  • 💰 19 companies raise $1.1B; 2 acquired

Onward to this week's issue.

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Vibe Check #2 - Budgets up or down?

If you are a practitioner, has your security budget gone up, down, or stayed flat in the second half of the year? Bonus points if you tell me why!

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Last week’s poll:

Vibe Check #1 - Black Hat Buying Decisions
For those who attended Black Hat, did any vendor, topic, or meeting help you make a "buying" decision?

More people said yes than I expected, but this is largely the vibe I was expecting and is my own personal sentiment.

If you want to add commentary to your poll answer, just reply back to the newsletter or email me at [email protected].

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🔮 Earnings Reports

A section for notable earnings reports from public cybersecurity companies, be they “pure play” or hybrid companies:

  • Palo Alto ($PANW) - Although the market got a bit scared of an earnings report post-market closure on a Friday (typically seen as a move to suppress less-than-positive results), Palo Alto came through strong once again and the cyber industry at large gave a collective sigh of relief. The stock rose 11%+ after hours.

    Significant growth came from the dual strategy of traditional firewalls and SASE offerings, as well as taking advantage of deferred customer payments by way of PANFS, Palo Alto’s financing arm that lets customers create a better payment plan.

Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto, on the latest earnings call (probably)

📅 YTD Funding

A rolling 12-week chart to compare funding and acquisitions each week between 2022 and 2023.

The funding chart got exploded this week with one major funding round from (details below), but even taking that transaction out, we are now equal to last year this time at $1.8B of funding raised for cybersecurity companies in Q3 2023.

A dip compared to previous weeks in Q3, but I believe it will be just a momentary blitz as the corporate venture capital arms start to wind up again.

💰 Funding Summary

  • 19 companies raised $1.1B across 14 unique product categories

  • 2 companies were acquired or had a merger eventacross 2 unique product categories

🧩 Funding By Product Category

  • $1.1B for Secure Networking across 1 deal

  • $29.6M for Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) across 3 deals

  • $25.0M for Threat Detection and Response (TDR) across 1 deal

  • $15.1M for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Privacy Assurance across 1 deal

  • $15.0M for Threat Intelligence across 2 deals

  • $12.0M for Security Operations across 1 deal

  • $8.2M for Business Continuity Planning (BCP) / Disaster Recovery across 1 deal

  • $6.0M for Professional Services across 3 deals

  • $5.9M for Stealth Cybersecurity Startup across 1 deal

  • $5.0M for Hardware Security across 1 deal

  • $3.0M for Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) across 1 deal

  • $127.1K for Data Protection across 1 deal

  • An undisclosed amount for Software Supply Chain Security across 1 deal

  • An undisclosed amount for Blockchain Security across 1 deal

🏢 Funding By Company

  • Akamai Technologies, a United States-based secure networking and website security platform, raised $1.1B in Post-IPO Debt. (more)

  • ProjectDiscovery, a United States-based open-source threat detection and response platform, raised a $25.0M Series A from CRV. (more)

  • Field Effect Software, a Canada-based managed security services provider (MSSP), raised a $22.1M Debt Financing from Scotiabank. (more)

  • DynamoFL, a United States-based platform for addressing data leakage risks for enterprise AI applications, raised a $15.1M Series A from Canapi Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners. (more)

  • DNSFilter, a United States-based DNS threat protection platform, raised a $15.0M Venture Round. (more)

  • Rootly, a United States-based cyber incident response management platform built into Slack, raised a $12.0M Series A from Renegade Partners. (more)

  • Arpio, a United States-based disaster recovery and cyber resilience platform for AWS environments, raised an $8.2M Seed from S3 Ventures and Companyon Ventures. (more)

  • Metabase Q, a United States-based managed security services provider (MSSP), raised a $7.4M Venture Round. (more)

  • Tausight, a United States-based professional services firm focused on securing healthcare and patient data, raised a $6.0M Venture Round from Polaris Partners. (more)

  • Flux Cyber, a United States-based still-in-stealth cybersecurity company being incubated at Glasswing Ventures, raised a $6.0M Venture Round from Glasswing Ventures. (I wouldn’t normally cover stealth companies, but they raised money and it was publicly available, so 🤷)

  • zeroRISC, a United States-based hardware security company, raised a $5.0M Venture Round.

  • ElastiFlow, a United States-based network traffic analysis platform, raised a $3.0M Venture Round. (more)

  • Secqai, a United Kingdom-based quantum-resistant cryptography platform, raised a $127.0K Grant from Department for Energy Security & Net Zero.

  • mHACKeroni, an Italy-based organized capture the flag (CTF) team that won the Hack-a-Satellite competition at DEFCON for hire, raised a $50.0K Grant from the United States Space Force.

  • Aegis, a China-based blockchain security company, raised an undisclosed Seed from  Generative Ventures and Northern Light Venture Capital.

  • DynTek, a United States-based professional services firm focused on IT and cybersecurity services, raised an undisclosed Post-IPO Equity from Gallant Capital Partners. (more)

  • Ox Security, an Israel-based software supply chain security and risk management platform, raised an undisclosed Venture Round from IBM Ventures. (more)

  • rSolutions, a Canada-based managed security services provider (MSSP), raised an undisclosed Private Equity from Gallant Capital Partners. (more)

  • Sentar, a United States-based cyber threat intelligence company, raised an undisclosed Grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. (more)

🌎 Funding By Country

  • $1.2B for United States across 13 deals

  • $22.1M for Canada across 2 deals

  • $127.1K for United Kingdom across 1 deal

  • An undisclosed amount for Italy across 1 deal

  • An undisclosed amount for Israel across 1 deal

  • An undisclosed amount for China across 1 deal

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🤝 Mergers & Acquisitions

  • Satisnet, a United Kingdom-based managed security services provider (MSSP), was acquired by Gamma for an undisclosed amount. (more)

  • SpearTip, a United States-based cyber counterintelligence firm, was acquired by Zurich Insurance Group for an undisclosed amount. (more)

📚 Great Reads

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🧪 Labs

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✅ Let’s Work Together

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