Cybersecurity merger and acquisition deals, funding announcements, and public offerings: This week’s most sizable venture funding rounds involved cloud infrastructure security and biometric verification companies. As the sector continues to attract strong interest from strategic buyers, notable recent mergers involved security automation and response (SOAR) and cybersecurity risk consulting.
Funding
Critical infrastructure security provider Xage announced a $30 million Series B funding round. The Palo Alto-based company provides zero trust security for energy, utility, and transportation industries. Customers include the US Air Force, US Department of Energy, federal contractor Iron Bow, and 1898 & Co.—a technology consultancy owned by engineering firm Burns & McDonnell. Venture capital firm Piva led the round, bringing Xage’s total funding to date to $54 million.
Bot-fraud mitigation provider Human Security raises $100 million in a funding round led by WestCap. The cybersecurity-focused investor NightDragon and other current investors participated in funding to support the company’s next phase of growth. In late 2020, venture investor ClearSky Security and NightDragon created a partnership with the merchant-banking arm of Goldman Sachs to acquire the New York City-based company previously known as White Ops.
Cybersecurity infrastructure firm Ermetic raises $70 million in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to $100 million. Ermetic will use this funding to accommodate customer growth and expand marketing operations in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific.
Cybersecurity compliance startup ByteChek announces $3 million seed round led by early-stage investor Authentic Ventures. The Miami-based company built early traction (40% customer growth in two months per announcement) on the promise of using automation to make compliance “suck less”. Investors include Hearst’s venture arm focused on minority-led tech companies Level Up Ventures, along with angel investors Concrete Rose Capital, Black Venture Capital Consortium, Miami Angels, and Black Angels Miami.
Mobile security platform Privoro closes $30 million in Series B funding to scale the company’s team and operations.
No-code cybersecurity platform ContraForce receives $2 million in initial investment from DataTribe, a global investor in cybersecurity. ContraForce makes cybersecurity more manageable for smaller scale companies by providing security software that removes the involvement of complex code.
Identity verification platform Bureau raises $12 million through Series A funding round. The goal is to help expand Bureau’s reach in India and South-Asia, and make customer interactions more seamless. Quona Capital led this round of funding.
Glilot Capital Partners and Battery Ventures led Atmosec’s $6 million seed funding round. With the new funding, Atomsec launched its platform to secure companies’ SaaS ecosystem, with the intent to protect those often vulnerable to cyber threats, by analyzing the behavior of third parties.
Source code security platform GitGuardian closes their most recent round of funding with $44 million. Funding is marked to improve their application security and their shared responsibility model which sets out to better serve developers and their code security needs.
Cybersecurity ratings platform FortifyData finalizes $5 million funding round. FortifyData condenses multiple processes, such as third party risk management and security compliance management, to create their ratings. Funding is set to aid the platform’s drive to fill more leadership roles and improve security engineering. This round was led by Tech Square Ventures with participation from SoftBank’s SB Opportunity Fund, Panoramic Ventures, and follow-on participation from Oval Park Capital.
Canadian cybersecurity provider TrojAI Inc. closed CAD $3 million in seed funding. The company creates software to protect artificial intelligence platforms from malware hidden in photos and data. The new funding is marked for the expansion of protection tools and the inclusion of natural language processing systems.
Livingbridge announces investment in Quorum Cyber, a UK-based security services provider. Quorum was founded in 2016 to reduce cyber risks for banks, major brands, and cloud providers. The investment is to continue Livingbridge’s expansion in cybersecurity spaces.
Facial authentication provider iProov receives a $70 million investment from Sumeru Equity Partners, a Silicon Valley growth fund. The investment seeks to aid iProov’s efforts to build its U.S. leadership team, drive growth, and expand its customer base.
Learn about the top security ventures and merger trends in our cybersecurity investment report.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Google acquired Israeli cybersecurity provider Simplify. The $500 million deal marks Google’s first acquisition of a cybersecurity company outside of the US, according to Calcalist. Founded in 2015, the security automation and response provider will join Google Cloud’s security team, will join Google Cloud’s security team and will integrate within its security analytics platform Chronicle.
External security company ZeroFox announced it will acquire digital privacy company IDX and become a publicly traded company through its special-purpose acquisition company merger with blank check company L&F Acquisition Corp.
Information technology and consulting company Wipro reaches a deal to acquire Edgile, an Austin-based cybersecurity consulting firm. Together the two companies will establish Wipro CyberTransform with the goal of creating a more robust and practical cybersecurity approach.
Read more cybersecurity M&A and funding updates from SecureDisruptions here.
