At a glance.
- Mergers and acquisitions.
- Marketplace.
- Investments and exits.
- Executive moves.
- Company news.
- Labor markets.
Mergers and acquisitions.
CISO Global, Inc. announced its acquisition of SB Cyber Technologies, “a cybersecurity company that specializes in identifying, enhancing and applying emerging government and military grade capabilities to critical commercial technical security challenges.”
Safe Security acquired RiskLens, the pioneer of the Cyber Risk Quantification standard. “We are at a critical inflection point in the market with new cyber risk management guidelines stemming from the White House and regulatory bodies, like the SEC. I am thrilled to welcome RiskLens, which has pioneered the FAIR model of cyber risk quantification and established a trusted standard for measuring cyber risk, supported by over fourteen thousand practitioners, representing 50% of Fortune 500 companies,” said Saket Modi, CEO and Co-founder at Safe Security.
Marketplace.
ValueWalk reports that cybersecurity stocks have fallen after Microsoft announced it would be expanding its offerings in this sector. “Such a move from a Redmond-based tech company was somewhat expected given Microsoft’s increased focus on data security in recent years. However, these actions also represent a competitive threat to established players in this sector, including Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, and Cloudflare, even if the company’s products are still in the early stage of development. Palo Alto shares closed 7% lower on Wednesday, while Zscaler and Cloudflare fell 6.6% and 5.5%, respectively.” writes ValueWalk.
Investments and exits.
PingSafe announced its launch from Stealth with $3.3 in seed funding. LEading the company will be Anand Prakash as CEO and Co-founder with Nishant Mittal as CTO and Co-founder. The press release states, “PingSafe is a cloud security platform that bridges the gap between attackers’ modus operandi and security solutions currently on the market. By aggregating intelligence via Cloud APIs and logs, PingSafe utilizes its graph database to generate a normalized architecture of the cloud real estate of a client. Utilizing its Offensive Security Engine, PingSafe then detects toxic and exploitable vulnerabilities, allowing security teams to make efficient decisions without relying on human verification of alerts.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Netcraft has raised $100 million in an investment from Spectrum Equity Management.
Bureau, a fraud and identity decisioning platform, has ended its series A funding with $16.5 million from GMO venture partners, reports NewsDirect.
Executive moves.
Bishop Fox has announced, on July 18th, that it has added Patrick Davis as its new Chief Financial Officer (CFO). “Davis brings more than two decades of financial leadership and experience, both as a CFO and an independent advisor across a range of high-growth innovators. He will report to CEO Vinnie Liu,” the press release states.
CityBiz reports that HolistiCyber has appointed Lord Jonathan Evans, former Director General of the British Security Service MI5, to its advisory board.
Israeli-American cybersecurity seed stage venture capital firm YL Ventures welcomed Dave Reed, former CFO and CCO of PowerPlant Partners, as CFO.
Netcraft has appointed Ryan Woodley as its new CEO in conjunction with an investment from Spectrum Equity Management.
Rashida Hodge was welcomed to Sonatypes Board of Directors. ”A pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, Hodge will help steer Sonatype's leading software supply chain management platform,” reports Business Wire.
Canopius named ISabel Finn as its Senior Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst, reports Reinsurance News.
Company news.
Egress reported that it would be partnering with KnowBe4 in an effort to increase email security through a “proactive approach to defending against advanced inbound and outbound threats, and transform the way in which they manage human risk in email.”
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) has awarded Electrosoft a $37.8 million cybersecurity contract. “the Department of Treasury, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Office of Critical Infrastructure and Information Technology Security (OCIITS) has awarded the company a contract valued up to $37.8 million to provide cybersecurity support to OCIITS. The five-year prime contract includes a one-year base period of performance plus four option years,” Cision writes. BEP is responsible for producing currency in the form of printed dollars for the Federal Reserve.
Labor markets.
TechCrunch released a report titled “If cybersecurity isn’t recession-proof, what is?” in which it discusses the impact of the current market on cybersecurity investments. “Cybersecurity startups only raised 1.6 billion in Q2 2023,” the report reads. This is a 63% decrease in funding when compared to Q2 2022 and is also the lowest amount raised since Q4 2019. A report from CrunchBase News shows that the investments have been on a steady downward trend since a high in Q4 of 2021. This downward trend could be caused by many factors but one factor might be the role that AI has played in the cybersecurity field. CrunchBase explains, “Security companies likely will look to AI to improve offerings, helping security operations run more efficiently. Cybersecurity also could play a role in making sure the data AI is using is not corrupted.” CrunchBase news predicts that “the second half of the year could be an interesting ride.”