💰 Security, Funded #117 - From Trust Issues to Big Bucks: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

Hey there,

Happy Monday, and I hope you had a great weekend. In this week’s issue, we’ve got:

• 🤝 Slight uptick in M&A activity

• 🤑 13 companies secure $327.8M

• 🆗 Authentications will continue until morale improves

• 📚 Talking AI Security, No More SOC Heroes, and Cyber Mindset

The cybersecurity market is constantly in flux.

While Okta seems to be the Teflon Don of the authentication world - even multiple breaches can’t stick to them - end-of-the-year earnings calls are starting to highlight the lumpy and uncertain macroeconomic landscape we are still in.

For security leaders, it remains critical to keep a diversified tech strategy, balancing between established industry players and agile startups while also keeping an eye on fluctuating market sentiments.

Onward to this week's issue.

Last week’s poll:

Vibe Check - Are you giving Okta the boot?
If you are an Okta customer today, are you looking to replace them given all of their breaches and the extremely sensitive position of trust they are in?

Despite several other security teams at other cybersecurity companies calling them out, Okta is most likely here to stay. When you are the enterprise choice for access and authentication and when you largely have a monopoly on this space, even continued losses of trust can’t drive customers away. Because who would they go to anyway?

On a positive note, Cloudflare made a new open-source tool to help other companies not fall victim in the same way.

📅 YTD Funding

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

Funding transactions and dollar amounts continue to go up and to the right, as we move further into Q4. This week brings us ~9% shy of the running 12-week average.

After last week’s snooze fest in the cyber M&A world, it’s good to see a bit of a rebound this week. I expect this pace to pick up as we approach the end of Q4.

💰 Funding Summary

• 13 companies raised $327.8M across 11 unique product categories

• 3 companies were acquired or had a merger event across 3 unique product categories

🧩 Funding By Product Category

• $100.0M for Remote Browser Isolation across 1 deal

• $75.0M for Attack Surface Management (ASM) across 2 deals

• $70.0M for Managed Detection and Response (MDR) across 1 deal

• $33.0M for Fraud and Financial Crime Protection across 1 deal

• $29.8M for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Security across 2 deals

• $8.0M for Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) across 2 deals

• $6.8M for Cybersecurity Education & Training across 1 deal

• $3.3M for Threat Intelligence across 1 deal

• $1.3M for Machine Learning (ML) Security across 1 deal

• $629.8K for Digital Sovereignty across 1 deal

• An undisclosed amount for Data Protection across 1 deal

🏢 Funding By Company

• Island, a United States-based secure remote browser isolation platform, raised a $100.0M Series C from Prysm Capital. (more)

• Adlumin, a United States-based managed detection and response (MDR) platform, raised a $70.0M Series B from SYN Ventures. (more)

• Censys, a United States-based attack surface management (ASM) platform, raised a $50.0M Series C from Decibel Partners, GV, and Greylock and a $25.0M Debt Financing round from SVB Capital and Silicon Valley Bank (yes, that SVB). (more)

• Blockaid, an Israel-based platform protecting Web3 wallets and applications from phishing and fraudulent transactions, raised a $33.0M Series A from Ribbit Capital. (more)

• Cranium, a United States-based platform for monitoring the security of AI/ML environments, raised a $25.0M Series A from Telstra Ventures. (more)

• Upfort, a United States-based managed security services provider (MSSP) and cyber insurance provider, raised a $8.0M Series A from SYN Ventures. (more)

• Cyber.org, a United States-based education platform for helping students and families learn about cybersecurity, raised a $6.8M Grant from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). (more)

• Credal.ai, a United States-based platform for securely connecting local or cloud-hosted LLMs to enterprise data, raised a $4.8M Seed from Spark Capital. (more)

• BrandShield, an Israel-based online brand abuse takedown platform, raised a $3.3M Private Equity Round from NFX. (more)

• HiddenLayer, a United States-based platform protecting against adversarial machine learning (AML) attacks, raised a $1.3M Grant from the U.S. Department of Defense. (more)

• Pinteg, a Sweden-based platform that lets individuals and organizations control where and how their data is stored, processed, and shared, raised a $630.0K Seed.

• Dynamic Networks Group, a United Kingdom-based managed security services provider (MSSP), raised an undisclosed Private Equity Round from Kingsland Capital. (more)

• Keyfactor, a United States-based private key infrastructure (PKI) management platform for human and machine identities, raised an undisclosed Private Equity Round from  Sixth Street. (more)

🌎 Funding By Country

• $290.9M for United States across 10 deals

• $36.3M for Israel across 2 deals

• $629.8K for Sweden across 1 deal

• An undisclosed amount for United Kingdom across 1 deal

🤝 Mergers & Acquisitions

• Mnemo Mexico, a Mexico-based professional services firm focused on cybersecurity consulting, was acquired by Accenture for an undisclosed amount. (more)

• nextAuth, a Belgium-based passwordless authentication platform, was acquired by Itsme for an undisclosed amount. (more)

• Radius Technologies, a Canada-based managed security services provider (MSSP), was acquired by Ekco for an undisclosed amount. (more)

📚 Great Reads

• AI Security Has Serious Terminology Issues - Joseph Thacker talks about the common terminology issues he sees with how we talk about AI Security as an industry and provides some suggestions on how we can move forward

• *How Leading Companies Use Trust Center Updates — Best Practices and Examples - Ever wish you could be proactive about communicating updates to your security posture – instead of a barrage of inbound questions? This guide walks through the types of updates (even breaches and documentation) security leaders are using Trust Center technology to skip the paperwork.

• Leading with a cybersecurity mindset - Victoria Drake's post about having a cybersecurity mindset - Times and technologies change, but a few good ideas are still the same. With consistent application, a handful of wise practices can help deter a slew of cybersecurity attacks.

• How to Banish Heroes from Your SOC? - Dr. Anton Chuvakin talks about the concept of IT heroism within Security Operations Centers (SOCs) and the implications it has for a SOC's ability to respond to threats.

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🧪 Labs

Really makes you think 🤔