At a glance.
- Forcepoint to acquire Bitglass.
- Wiz secures $250 million in Series C round.
- Black Kite raises $22 million.
Mergers and acquisitions.
Austin, Texas-based data security firm Forcepoint will acquire Campbell, California-headquartered cloud security company Bitglass. Forcepoint stated, "Bitglass’s SSE platform complements Forcepoint’s Data-first SASE architecture and will accelerate Forcepoint’s efforts to make advanced data security and threat protection technologies easier for organizations to deploy and use."
Deloitte Australia will acquire Canberra-based managed service provider Sliced Tech, CRN reports. Sliced Tech's founder and CEO Jason McClure stated, "This is an incredible opportunity for us to grow the reach of our specialist, high security cloud managed services. Deloitte is a leader in cloud services more generally. We will continue to offer the specialist services behind our market leadership, and we are excited that our offerings will also add to the firm’s market presence more broadly. It’s exciting for our business and for our people, and their professional development and the career opportunities available within a leading professional services firm."
Holding company RealDefense has acquired antivirus firm STOPzilla. Both companies are based in Santa Monica, California. RealDefense CEO Gary Guseinov stated, "We are excited to offer RealDefense’s suite of products to STOPzilla customers and continue to provide valuable privacy, security and optimization services. The STOPzilla team has done an amazing job building the company over the past 20 years and we are confident that we can continue to improve on the brand’s success."
Investments and exits.
Wiz, a cloud security firm based in Palo Alto, California and Tel Aviv, has raised $250 million in a Series C round led by Insight Partners and Greenoaks Capital, with participation from Sequoia, Index, Salesforce, and others. The funding brings the company's valuation to $6 billion.
London-based blockchain analysis company Elliptic has raised $60 million in a Series C round led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and existing investors AlbionVC, Digital Currency Group, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, SBI Group, Octopus Ventures, SignalFire, and Paladin Capital Group. The company stated, "With the new investment, Elliptic plans to strengthen its global leadership position through continued research and development, investment in its global network and expansion of Elliptic’s team, particularly in the U.S. Richard Seewald, Founder and Managing Partner at Evolution Equity Partners will join the Board of Directors to provide strategic, proven leadership building global software companies."
San Diego-based privacy engineering company Gretel.ai has secured $50 million in a Series B round led by Anthos Capital, with participation from Section 32 and existing investors Greylock and Moonshots Capital. The company has said, "With the new funding, Gretel will continue to advance the AI capabilities of its platform to support customer use cases in life sciences, financial, gaming, and technology industries."
Boston-based third-party cyber risk ratings firm Black Kite has raised $22 million in a Series B round led by Volition Capital, with participation from existing investors Moore Strategic Ventures, Glasswing Ventures, and Data Point Capital. The company says it will use the funding "to expand investment in marketing, customer success, channels, and strategic partnerships."
Arlington, Virginia-based Shift5, a company that focuses on OT cybersecurity for military vehicles, has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by 645 Ventures, with participation from Squadra Ventures, General Advance, and First In. The company's co-founder and CEO Josh Lospinoso described the market, "Defending the cyber-physical attack surface of planes, trains, and tanks is a national security imperative. This fresh financing represents significant investment in hiring world-class talent, advancing Shift5's platform, and bringing cybersecurity to the trillions of dollars in fleet assets moving the world."
Boston-based data privacy compliance startup CYTRIO has raised $3.5 million in a seed funding round led by Dreamit Ventures, Food Retail Ventures, Rockwood Group, and angel investors. The company's founder and CEO Vijay Basani stated, "Today, we launch CYTRIO to enable mid-size companies to comply with numerous privacy regulations, while building customers’ trust that is essential to thrive in today’s digital economy. Our mission to deliver an easy-to-deploy SaaS privacy rights management solution will help mid-market enterprises swiftly and cost-effectively comply with data privacy regulations with minimal resources."
Michigan-based cloud security company Tenacity has raised $3 million in a funding round led by Hyde Park Angels, with participation from Sandalphon Capital, Base Investments UK, and others. The company says the funding "will enable Tenacity to drive its go-to-market strategy further and enhance product roadmap development."
Executive moves.
JLL has appointed Joe Silva as Global Chief Information Security Officer. Silva previously served as Senior Vice President of Cybersecurity at TransUnion.
TransUnion has hired Bill Shields as Chief Information Security Officer. Shields most recently served as Senior Pice President of Cybersecurity at Visa.
Datto's regional vice president for Australia and New Zealand James Bergl has left the company, CRN reports. Bergl plans to take the rest of the year off before beginning a new role. Datto's Chief Revenue Officer Sanjay Singh told CRN, “James brought charisma and passion to the Datto team every day. We thank him for his years of leadership and wish him the best in his next chapter."
Socure has appointed Matt Thompson as General Manager of Public Sector Solutions. Thompson previously served as Senior Vice President, Civil Identity for North America at IDEMIA.
Ordr has appointed René Bonvanie as Executive Chairman of the Board. Bonvanie currently serves as an Executive in Residence at Battery Ventures.
McAfee has added former Deloitte Partner Emily Rollins to its board of directors.
Kovrr has added Philippe Vuilleumier, Head of Group Security at Swisscom, to its CISO advisory board.
Companies in the news.
The Wisconsin-based cybersecurity education shop the Infosec Institute has announced that it will host a Certified CMMC Professional (CCP) Boot Camp this week. The company stated, "Held from October 11 to October 15, 2021, Infosec’s five-day CCP Boot Camp delivers a comprehensive overview of the new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification requirements to prepare students for their upcoming CCP certification exam — the first step to becoming a Certified CMMC Assessor. J Kenneth (Ken) Magee, a CMMC-Provisional Instructor will instruct the inaugural CCP boot camp. Magee is a veteran Infosec boot camp instructor who holds over 25 professional certifications."
Labor markets.
Veriff has published a report looking at cybersecurity jobs and companies around the world:
"The US comes out on top as the country with the largest cybersecurity workforce at nearly 900,000 employees, closely followed by Brazil with just over 600,000. Mexico comes in at third having nearly half a million employees and, to no surprise, over 9.9 million malware attacks were registered in Mexico in just the first half of 2020. The US, when analysed against its population, gets pushed down to ninth place, while Singapore takes the top spot with the largest percentage of its population employed in cybersecurity, at 1%."
Veriff also found that California-headquartered Netskope has the highest number of job openings at 566, followed by Sophos, Cybereason, Arctic Wolf, Imperva, SentinelOne, 1Password, LogRhythm, Code42, and Darktrace:
"Jobs in engineering and sales are the most sought after, making up nearly half of the total job openings, featuring roles such as software engineer and sales engineer. Over a quarter of the total job openings fall under the Engineering department, with the top job opening being Senior Software Engineer. Learning skills in software is a great way to get into a cybersecurity job, with 30% of the department’s top jobs being software-based."