💰 Security, Funded #131 - Cyber Cuts & Funding Surges: Navigating Contradictions in Cybersecurity

Hey there,

Happy Tuesday, and I hope you had a great weekend! As a quick reminder, if there is a US holiday, I’ll always send the newsletter on the following day.

In this issue, we’ve got:

• 🤖 Securing AI

• 😎 Vibes Are Still Good

• 💣️ Funding Bombs Dropping

• ✂️ The Cyber Cuts Keeping Coming

The cyber cuts keep on coming, with Cisco planning to cut 5% (~4,250) of its workforce and Tenable laying off 5% of its staff in the last week, and the funding bombs keep on dropping, with some big raises down below. Everyone should still brace for continued volatility and get really good at balancing to thrive this year.

Onward to this week's issue.

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Last issue’s vibe check:
Do you think we will continue to see layoffs in the security industry at the same rate as last year?
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🙂 Not as bad as last year (29)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 😕 Yes, but not better or worse (26)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😭 Yes, and worse than last year (14)
69 Votes

When it comes to how people perceive things, “vibes” have a lot to do with it, even if it’s not quantifiable. ~80% of poll respondents last week think things were the same or slightly better than they were last year on the layoffs front.

I think that things will continue in this world of contradictions — funding rounds are going up for cyber companies while layoffs are going up at the same time — at least through the end of Q1. After Q1, companies will have a better sense of how the big public players have faired and will have some better intuition on the “vibe” of the rest of the year.

📸 YoY Snapshot

A rolling 12-week chart to compare funding and acquisitions each week in a year-over-year (YoY) view between 2023 and 2024.

As this is a new year, this chart will be building over the next 12 weeks and then roll forward.

Funding is still looking quite strong in 2024, as we are halfway through February. If you’re looking at the same time in 2023, however, it’s quite a noticeable difference. You’re seeing a ~$484.0M drop or a ~166% decline, but that’s mostly because this time last year had a few mega deals between Quantum Security and MDR. Don’t let the big difference scare you, though; this year is still going strong.

M&A is still holding at a pretty strong clip as the year goes on and is quite close to last year during this time. To date, there have been 21 M&A events compared to 29 events last year during the same timeframe.

💰 Market Summary

• 12 companies raised $291.4M across 11 unique product categories from 3 countries 

• 4 companies were acquired or had a merger event across 4 unique product categories

🧩 Funding By Product Category

• $102.0M for Bug Bounty across 1 deal

• $67.0M for Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) across 2 deals

• $43.0M for Threat & Vulnerability Management (TVM) across 1 deal

• $35.0M for Secure Networking across 1 deal

• $16.0M for Trust & Safety across 1 deal

• $8.0M for Identity and Access Management (IAM) across 1 deal

• $7.5M for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance across 1 deal

• $7.4M for Threat and Risk Prioritization across 1 deal

• $5.3M for Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) across 1 deal

• $50.0K for Data Protection across 1 deal

• An undisclosed amount for Fraud and Financial Crime Protection across 1 deal

• An undisclosed amount for Cyber Risk Management across 1 deal

🏢 Funding By Company

• Bugcrowd, a United States-based crowdsourced application security and bug bounty platform, raised a $102.0M Series E from General Catalyst. (more)

• cPacket Networks, a United States-based network observability and monitoring platform, raised a $67.0M Venture Round from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital and an undisclosed Debt Financing from Trinity Capital(more)

• Nucleus Security, a United States-based automated threat and vulnerability remediation platform, raised a $43.0M Series B from Arthur Ventures and Lead Edge Capital. (more)

• Meter, a United States-based secure networking platform, raised a $35.0M Venture Round from Lachy Groom and Sam Altman. (more)

• Clarity, a United States-based trust and safety platform for defending against deep fake attacks, raised a $16.0M Seed from Walden Catalyst and Bessemer Venture Partners. (more)

• Permit.io, an Israel-based user authentication-as-a-service platform, raised an $8.0M Series A from Scale Venture Partners. (more)

• Guardrails AI, a United States-based artificial intelligence (AI) governance and risk management platform, raised a $7.5M Seed from Zetta Venture Partners. (more)

• Seal Security, a United States-based threat prioritization platform using LLMs to prioritize patching, raised a $7.4M Seed from Vertex Ventures. (more)

• KTrust, an Israel-based continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) platform for Kubernetes, raised a $5.3M Seed from Awz Ventures. (more)

• Phalanx, a United States-based secure data classification, protection, and transfer platform, raised a $50.0K Grant from Arlington Economic Development. (more)

• Dojah, a United States-based identity verification platform, raised an undisclosed Non-Equity Assistance from Visa Accelerator.

• KYND, a United Kingdom-based cyber risk management platform, raised an undisclosed Venture Round from Business Growth Fund and Verisk. (more)

🌎 Funding By Country

• $278.1M for the United States across 10 deals

• $13.3M for Israel across 2 deals

• An undisclosed amount for the United Kingdom across 1 deal

🤝 Mergers & Acquisitions

• Cyber Threat Cognitive Intelligence, a United States-based cyber threat intelligence platform, was acquired by Armis Security for an undisclosed amount. (more)

• Liquid IT, a New Zealand-based managed security services provider (MSSP), was acquired by Orro Group for an undisclosed amount. (more)

• Nixu Corporation, a Finland-based professional services firm focused on cybersecurity, merged with Applied Risk for an undisclosed amount, both of which are owned by DNV. (more)

• Wib, an Israel-based API security platform, was acquired by F5 for an undisclosed amount. (more)

📚 Great Reads

• The majority of traffic from Twitter (X) may have been fake during the Super Bowl - Twitter's Super Bowl traffic may have been nearly 76% made up of bots and fake traffic.

• *Can Smart Cities be Designed Safely? - An intriguing look at the complicated relationship between AI technologies and data security & privacy and if we should follow the arc of innovation even in light of potential harms.

• Embracing Neurodiversity Within Information Security - Melodie Wilson and Scott Behrens from Netflix discuss the benefits of neurodiversity in Information Security, providing insights into how neurodivergent individuals contribute unique strengths to the field.

• The News of the Death of Cybersecurity Analyst Firms is Greatly Exaggerated - Let's explore the rumored decline of industry analyst firms in cybersecurity and discover the nuanced realities behind these critical market influencers.

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🧪 Labs

Big when true 😳