At a glance.
- Darktrace announces intent to acquire Cado Security.
- Orchid Security raises $36 million in seed funding.
Mergers and acquisitions.
British cybersecurity firm Darktrace has announced its proposed acquisition of London-based cloud investigation and response provider Cado Security. The company stated, "Darktrace intends to accelerate the growth of Cado’s existing products through investment while also combining Cado’s forensic investigation technology with Darktrace’s existing ActiveAI Security Platform™, enhancing data collection across multiple cloud environments to better defend customers’ operations." The acquisition is expected to complete regulatory approval in February.
UK-headquartered managed security services firm Quorum Cyber has acquired Berkeley, California-based ransomware and incident response firm Kivu Consulting. The companies stated, "Kivu holds established relationships in over 40 Insurance and Legal panels across the U.S. and the U.K. This transformative acquisition not only rapidly expands Quorum Cyber’s presence within these industries, but also provides a robust foundation to strengthen its alliances and cement its status as a premier global threat management firm, renowned for its exceptional incident response capabilities. In addition, the acquisition of Kivu enables Quorum Cyber to deliver its market-leading threat management services from three operations centers in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada to its customers worldwide."
Investments and exits.
New York-based identity security company Orchid Security has secured $36 million in seed funding led by Team8 and Intel Capital, with participation from CapitalOne and angel investors. The company stated, "This funding will accelerate Orchid's pioneering work using Large Language Models (LLMs) to address the longstanding challenge of managing fragmented identity systems in large enterprises. With this major infusion of seed capital, Orchid is poised to accelerate the development of its platform, scale up its sales and support teams, and build its marketing engine."
ThreatMark, a behavior-based fraud prevention company based in Brno and London, has secured $23 million in combined investments from Octopus Ventures, Riverside Acceleration Capital, and Springtide Ventures Fund. The round includes $15 million from Octopus Ventures and Riverside Acceleration Capital, plus an $8 million convertible note from Springtide Ventures Fund. The company says the funding "will be used to expand market reach, including key regions like the UK and US, accelerate research and development, and enhance solution capabilities."
New York-headquartered predictive attack intelligence startup BforeAI has raised $10 million in an oversubscribed Series B round led by Titanium Ventures. The company says the funding "will accelerate market expansion in the utilities, pharmaceutical, and healthcare sectors as the company continues to enhance its PreCrime™ platform, expand sales resources, and strengthen partnerships."
Irish data privacy and compliance startup Dataships has raised $7 million in a Series A round led by Osage Venture Partners, with participation from Lavrock Ventures and the Urban Innovation Fund. Dataships says the funding will fuel product innovation and market expansion, and allow the company to scale its engineering and support teams.
Executive moves.
Protegrity has appointed Michael Howard as CEO.
Aryaka has promoted Vidyaranya Maddi to Chief Customer Officer and hired Scott Fanning as VP of Security Product Management.
CrowdStrike has hired Adam Zoller as Chief Information Security Officer.
Halcyon has added former Barclay’s CISO Oliver Newbury as a strategic advisor.