Cybersecurity Venture Funding Heats Up; Tally Tops At Least $630 Mil.


With the NSA, retail payment system breaches, Heartbleed vulnerabilities and other kinds of damaging digital security developments creating a vortex of never-ending headlines, it's little surprise that venture capitalists seem to be pouring money into cybersecurity start-ups at an accelerating pace.  In the past two days, Synack, a crowd-source vulnerability testing start-up founded by two former NSA analysts, and automated malware detection start-up Sentinel Labs announced they snagged a combined $18 mil. in capital from blue-chip Silicon Valley funders.

Synack got $7.5 mil. from Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, while Sentinel Labs got $12 mil. from a groupd of investors that includes Accel Partners and Granite Hill Capital Partners.  They join an impressive list of cybersecurity tech start-ups that have been catching the attention of tech's biggest money men since the beginning of 2012.

According to my list, which reflects only the funding announcements that have come across my radar screen, total cybersecurity-related tech start-up funding since over the past two years tops at least $630 mil.  This year alone, around $143 mil. in venture capital has flowed to cybersecurity companies and the pace seems to be picking up.

The tally below doesn't include the venture capital flowing into adjacent sectors, such as big data players, where a good deal of cybersecurity tech development occurs.  In all probability, the amount of venture capital flowing to new cybersecurity tech creation probably over the past two years probably nears the $1 bil. mark, if not higher.


Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More