At a glance.
- Red Sift acquires Hardenize.
- DataGrail raises $45 million in Series C funding.
- Former NSO chief executive forms a new cybersecurity company.
Mergers and acquisitions.
London-based Red Sift has acquired global Attack Surface Management (ASM) company Hardenize. Rahul Powar, CEO of Red Sift, said, “This move gives us the purview to do more for cybersecurity than we ever have before, elevating the breed of solution available to enterprise businesses for full Attack Surface Management and resilience. By acquiring Hardenize, an innovator in Attack Surface Management (ASM), we extend our leading security products beyond protecting email; enabling enterprise customers to see their full attack surface, solve the issues at hand, and secure their valuable assets in an ever-evolving threat continuum. Bringing Hardenize and Red Sift together presents an opportunity to redefine how we approach ASM, and in turn revolutionize how enterprises protect themselves comprehensively and effectively in the face of an ever-evolving attack landscape.”
US Defense and Intelligence cybersecurity, intelligence solutions, and software platform provider SilverEdge Government Solutions, backed by Godspeed Capital Management, has acquired intelligence software provider QVine. CEO of SilverEdge, Robert Miller, said, “We are pleased to welcome the QVine team to SilverEdge. This acquisition blends our capabilities and provides disruptive technology-enabled solutions that meet the evolving challenges of today’s security environment for the Defense and Intelligence Communities. QVine’s unique software development platform, SOAR, complements our existing SaaS capabilities, expands our service and solutions offerings, and enables us to become the cyber and technology solutions provider of choice.”
Booz Allen Hamilton has completed its acquisition of advanced government solutions company EverWatch. Tom Pfeifer, National Security Sector President at Booz Allen Hamilton, said, “EverWatch’s talented workforce, national security expertise and core technical capabilities are an exceptional strategic fit with Booz Allen’s deep mission insights and robust portfolio of full-spectrum cyber operations, mission analytics, AI, and 5G offerings. The combination will deliver tremendous value to our clients as we work together to navigate a dynamic threat landscape and transform U.S. national cyber capabilities.”
Cybersecurity awareness company NINJIO has acquired cybersecurity provider DCOYA. NINJIO CEO Shaun McAlmont said, “DCOYA is a perfect fit for NINJIO because the team is aligned with our core philosophy. We already offer the best behavior-based learning content in the market, as well as an integrated LMS, simulated phishing tests, and reporting. We are thrilled to add a set of digital tools that will make our platform even more proactive, automated, and data-driven. DCOYA’s machine-learning-powered technology enables us to meet a security professional’s specific needs and streamline their approach to cybersecurity.”
Louisiana-based small and mid-sized business managed IT services provider The Purple Guys have acquired Indiana-based IT managed services provider Golden Tech. CEO of The Purple Guys, Kevin Cook, said, "We are thrilled to announce this highly strategic acquisition of Golden Tech, which is complementary to our existing offerings and supports our broader growth strategy. Shawn and Steve Massa built an outstanding company with an impressive track record of growth, a loyal client base and a tenured team with deep experience supporting the SMB community. We are very excited to partner with the Golden Tech team. We look forward to building on the company’s historical success and driving continued growth in the broader Northwest Indiana and Chicagoland markets."
Belgian cybersecurity company Hex-Rays has been acquired by a group of investors led by Smartfin, with co-investors SFPIM and SRIW. Hex-Rays says that it plans to use the funding to expand the company and accelerate product development.
Investments and exits.
DataGrail, a data privacy platform headquartered in California, has raised $45 million in Series C funding, led by Third Point Ventures, with participation from Cloud Apps Capital, Felicis Ventures, Next47, Operator Collective, Sixty Degree Capital, and Thomson Reuters Ventures. The round brings the total raised by the company to $84.2 million.
Security compliance automation startup Vanta, based in California, has raised $40 million in an extension of its Series B funding round, with CrowdStrike and individual investors taking part. Company CEO Christina Cacioppo said to TechCrunch that the funding will be used for customer acquisition, product research and development, and go-to-market efforts.
New York-based biometric security and privacy provider IronVest has raised $23 million in seed funding, led by Accomplice, with participation from Joule Ventures, OurCrowd, Trust Ventures, Ulysses, and several angel investors. The company plans to use the funding to accelerate go-to-market efforts and hire more employees.
Israeli connected device management startup SecuriThings has raised $21 million in Series B funding, led by USVP, with participation from Swisscom Ventures, Aleph, Firstime VC and Cresson Management. The funding will be used by the company for go-to-market efforts, and that product development will be accelerated.
California-based automated digital risk protection company Bolster has raised $15 million in funding, led by Cervin, Liberty Global Ventures, and Cheyenne Ventures with contributions from Thomvest Ventures and Crosslink Capital. The funding will be used for company expansion into more markets.
Multi-cloud data protection as a service company HYCU has announced a strategic investment from Okta Ventures. This investment is part of the company’s Series B extension, and follows $53 million in financing. “Connecting Okta's powerful SSO and identity management solutions with HYCU’s Protégé platform ensures data is available and protected regardless of location. We are thrilled to welcome Okta Ventures as an investor and to collaborate with Okta and the power of their industry-leading platform to provide a secure, easy to use and intuitive data protection solution for enterprise users around the world,” said Simon Taylor, founder and CEO of HYCU.
Executive moves.
Corelight has appointed Dr. Kelley Misata to lead the company’s open source strategy.
Blueshift Cybersecurity has appointed Johnny Calhoun as the company’s Chief Operating Officer.
Zluri has hired Todd Dekkinga as the company’s Chief Information Security Officer.
BigBear.ai has appointed Mandy Long as CEO and a board member.
Lightspeed has added three new members to their team: Mike Carpenter as a Venture Advisor, Yonit Wiseman as an investment partner, and Lisa Han as an investment partner.
Wi-Fi Alliance has named Kevin Robinson as the company’s Chief Executive Officer.
Axonius has hired Nick Degnan as Senior Vice President of Sales.
Surefire Cyber has appointed Cyndi Gula to the company’s Board of Directors.
Company news.
Former NSO Group chief executive Shalev Hulio has partnered with former Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, to form a new cybersecurity startup, Bloomberg reports. The company is named Dream Security and will be centered around protection of critical infrastructure. A spokesperson said that $20 million has been raised by the startup in a round led by venture capitalist Dovi Frances. “We decided to leave the intelligence side, offensive side if you want, and move to the defensive side. We saw that the biggest challenge the cyber world is dealing with is critical infrastructure,” said Hulio in an interview.
Leidos was awarded a $1.5 million prime task order in support of the Department of Defense PR Newswire reports. Included is a one-year base period, with four additional one-year period options. Gerry Fasano, Leidos Defense Group President, said, "In today's battlefield, the command who has actionable multi and cross domain data fastest is the one with the high ground. Leidos has finely tuned our portfolio of expertise and developed a dynamic enterprise suite of C5ISR solutions, including Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) tools to ensure our warfighters exploit state-of-the-art technology to maintain their decisive advantage and enable joint synergy for operational superiority. We are honored to support this critical mission, providing readiness against evolving global threats."
Illumio has been awarded a Department of Defense Enterprise Software Initiative (ESI) Purchase Agreement, PR Newswire reports. The company says the agreement will “streamline the procurement process and reduce costs for the DoD and Intelligence Community (IC) organizations so agencies can implement the Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation (ZTS) Platform to stop attacks from spreading across the hybrid attack surface to reduce risk and increase cyber resilience.”
Banco Santander and Forgepoint Capital announced a strategic alliance for cybersecurity investment and innovation, Santander reports. The bank says, “The alliance is based upon three initiatives: (i) the creation of Forgepoint Capital International (FPCI), a new venture capital management company to invest in cybersecurity startups mainly in Europe, Latin America and Israel, (ii) Santander's participation in Forgepoint's next North American fund, its third since its founding in 2015, and (iii) a program for select co-investments. Altogether, these three initiatives could reach an investment by Santander of up to €300 million.” The goal is to launch a first fund through FPCI in 2023 that includes both institutional and private investors, with Santander as the main investor.
Cost of phishing to business.
Ironscales published a report yesterday conducted by Osterman Research that details the cost of phishing to business. Phishing threats were shown to be lower threats today than 12 months ago, but are expected to increase next year. Phishing costs were also found to be not just financial in nature, but also take up one third of the time of security professionals, on average.