At a glance.
- Orca Security acquires RapidSec.
- NSO Group reportedly in talks to be purchased by US venture firm.
Mergers and acquisitions.
Cloud security company Orca Security has acquired web application security provider RapidSec, VentureBeat reports. Both companies are based in Tel Aviv. VentureBeat says "RapidSec’s technology is expected to be integrated into the Orca cloud security platform by the second or third quarter of the year."
Austin, Texas-headquartered IT management software provider SolarWinds has acquired Monalytic, a monitoring, analytics, and professional services provider based in Tampa, Florida. The company stated, "This acquisition helps provide SolarWinds federal customers with around-the-clock support to help optimize and secure their dynamic IT environments by coupling the company’s effective, accessible, and easy-to-use IT management products with Monalytic's seasoned experts who operate in the most secure environments."
Jacksonville, Florida-based cybersecurity consultancy Quadrant Information Security has been acquired by Worklyn Partners. Worklyn stated, "Serving as the centerpiece for Worklyn’s cybersecurity platform, Quadrant will leverage the growth equity investment to build out its expert team of security analysts, engineers, developers, and consultants, and to continue to evolve Sagan as the leading platform for security analytics."
Data443 has acquired Centurion SmartShield's ransomware protection and device recovery platform. Data443's founder and CEO Jason Remillard stated, "Completing this transaction adds immediate value to our clients and significantly boosts our capabilities and technology stack. At the same time, Data443 is acquiring a satisfied, robust customer list that will allow us to introduce our full suite of products and services. Centurion’s customers can now look forward to updated product releases, including new features like our recently released Antivirus Protect Manager™, local data sensitivity scanning, and data exfiltration protection to support zero-trust models that many clients are currently pursuing."
Investments and exits.
Austin, Texas-based AI software provider SparkCognition has raised $123 million in a Series D round from March Capital, Doha Venture Capital, B. Riley Venture Capital, AEI Horizon X, Temasek, Alan Howard, and Peter Löscher. The company stated, "Proceeds from this round will accelerate sales and marketing efforts, amplify research and development investments, and facilitate organic and inorganic growth. It also serves to underpin the financial wherewithal of the business."
SOC platform provider Hunters has raised $68 million in a Series C round led by Stripes, with participation from DTCP, Cisco Investments, Databricks, and existing investors YL Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, M12, US Venture Partners, Blumberg Capital, and Snowflake Ventures. The company's CEO and co-founder Uri May stated, "The funding will be used to further innovate in our platform and services, to strengthen our sales and partnerships across North America and EMEA and to help us continue to invest in exceptional talent that fits our company culture, which is driving our company to new frontiers and to conquering the market."
Washington, DC-based end-to-end encryption company Virtru has raised $60 million in a funding round led by ICONIQ Growth and Foundry Capital, with participation from Tiger Global, MC2, Bessemer Venture Partners, and New Enterprise Associates. The company says it "will use the funding round to accelerate the delivery of new products across its data protection portfolio and continue to scale with hiring across sales and marketing, research and development, and customer success."
Post-quantum cryptography firm PQShield has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by Addition, with participation from existing investors Oxford Science Enterprises (formerly OSI) and Crane. The company's CEO and co-founder Dr. Ali El Kaafarani stated, "We’ll be using this investment to accelerate the development of our pioneering quantum-ready cryptographic products for hardware, software and communications....We’ve now got people in the UK, the US, France and the Netherlands, and will be expanding into new markets over the next year. Our aim is to double the PQShield team by the end of this year, and we’re thrilled to kick this off with the recruitment of Graeme Hickey, formerly of NXP Semiconductors, as our new Senior Director of Hardware Engineering."
Palo Alto, California-based application security company ArmorCode has secured $11 million in a seed funding round led by Cervin Ventures, with participation from Sierra Ventures and Tau Ventures. The company says it "will use these new funds to extend its AppSecOps platform capabilities and expand the company's go-to-market efforts."
San Francisco-based open-source device management platform provider Fleet has raised $5 million in a seed round led by "CRV, Mike Arpaia, Nico Waisman of Lyft, Greg Martin of Sumo Logic, Jack Naglieri of Panther Labs, Ezra Olubi of Stripe, and Sid Sijbrandij."
Austin, Texas-based identity and access management company Evo Security has raised $3.9 million in a seed funding round led by Sorenson Ventures, Inner Loop Capital, Secure Octane, Channel Angels, and angel investors. The company says the funding "will help advance existing capabilities, expand product features, and build a world class partner success and support team."
New York City-headquartered decentralized biometric security startup Anonybit has raised $3.5 million in a Series A round led by Switch Ventures, with participation from NextGen Venture Partners, Industry Ventures, Preceptor Capital, and angel investors, AiThority reports.
Executive moves.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has fired the company's Chief Security Officer, Peiter Zatko (also known as Mudge), the New York Times reports. Twitter's CISO, Rinki Sethi, is also leaving the company.
Asigra has appointed Eric Simmons as CEO, Val Silva as Chief Technology Officer, Pete Nourse as Chief Revenue Officer/Chief Marketing Officer, and Chris Gilkes as VP of Worldwide Sales.
Zuul has named John Parmley as its new CEO. Parmley previously served as General Manager of the Americas at Claroty.
Aura has appointed Dr. Zulfikar Ramzan as Chief Scientist and CEO of Aura Labs. Ramzan previously served as chief technology officer and chief digital officer at RSA.
Stairwell has hired Shel Sharma as Vice President of Product, Siddhartha Sinha as Vice President of Engineering, and Silas Cutler as Principal Reverse Engineer.
KnowBe4 has promoted John Just to Chief Learning Officer, Tony Jennings to Executive Vice President of International and Global Channel Sales, Mark Patton to Executive Vice President of Engineering, and Mike Santos to Executive Vice President of Global Customer Success.
PerimeterX has appointed AJ Stahl as Chief Revenue Officer, Raymond Lim as Chief Financial Officer, Doug Jones as SVP of Corporate Development and Strategic Alliances, and Mark Whitehead as SVP of Service Delivery.
Cyberwrite has hired Tim Olson as Chief Revenue Officer. Olson previously served as Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Norton LifeLock.
Netography has hired Jennifer Leggio as Chief Marketing Officer and Joel Esler as Vice President of Threat Research.
Transmit Security has appointed Chris Pick as Chief Marketing Officer. Pick previously served as CMO at Tanium.
Coalition has named Chung-Man Tam as its first Chief Product Officer. Tam most recently served as Senior Vice President of Product Development at Affirm.
Syntax has hired Dessalen Wood as Chief People Officer.
Vade has hired Severin Walker as Director of Provider Products and Services. Walker previously served as Director of Risk and Policy Intelligence at Comcast.
Telos Corporation has added Bradley Jacobs and Derrick Dockery to its board of directors.
Companies in the news.
Haaretz reports that US venture capital firm Integrity Partners is in talks to buy controversial Israeli spyware vendor NSO Group, which was recently blacklisted by the US Commerce Department. Haaretz states:
"The plan outlines canceling or restricting most of the company's former clients, effectively bringing the company’s revenues to zero. Instead of the current 37 clients, the company will reduce its sales to only five clients: the Five Eyes Anglosphere intelligence alliance of New Zealand, the United States, Australia, Great Britain and Canada. The company would initially focus on defensive cyber products as part of its rebranding effort.
"During that time, Integrity promises to lobby the U.S. administration to remove NSO from the blacklist, and to deal with the pressure and lawsuits from Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Citizen Lab, Amnesty and others. At the same time they will continue to develop Pegasus spyware."