A total of $200 million were raised by a venture capital fund, Cybertstarts, whose primary focus is investing funds in cybersecurity startups, which are still in their early stages. For the third time in five years, it has managed to raise the amount of investment that it needed for a new fund. The Israeli VC company was founded by Gili Raanan in the year 2018. Its initial fund had been of no less than $54 million, namely Cyberstarts I. Up until now, the fund has made a total of six investments, which also includes Fireblocks. This has developed and designed new software to facilitate a secure transfer of assets across wallets and parties. The total amount raised for Fireblocks had been more than $500 million in the last month, which had a valuation of an astounding $8 billion.
Axis Cybersecurity is also a part of the six investments that Cyberstarts has made, which has successfully constructed a cloud security platform. In the year 2020, Cyberstarts II, the second fund from the company was launched. It invested a total of $100 million to back up cybersecurity startups in their seed or Series A rounds at the time. Another investment on the part of Cyberstarts also includes Wiz, a cloud security startup. At the time, it was valued at a figure of $6 billion. Noname Security is also a valuable investment made by Cyberstarts. Just recently, the company raised more than $100 million in a Series C round. Investors who placed their funds in Noname Security and Wiz include various entrepreneurs in the field of cybersecurity, such as Marius Nacht and Shlomo Kramer.
These two are the founders of Check Point Software Technologies Ltd, a cybersecurity firm based in the State of Israel. Other investors also participated, such as Rakesh Loonkar and Mikey Boodai, the two men who founded Trusteer and Transmit Security. Furthermore, Nir Zuk’s name was amongst the investors of Wiz and Noname Security, who founded a well-known cybersecurity company, Palo Alto Networks. Assaf Rappaport and Roy Zisapel, founder of Wiz and Adallom, and Radware, respectively, have also invested in the two cybersecurity startups. The VC fund focuses on recruiting the services of various chief information security officers working at reputable US companies, such as Home Depot, Starbucks, Zoom, and Walmart.
This is done to ensure that all these companies are able to receive quality insights and advice, with respect to the further development of their existing and new technologies. Cyberstarts has previously revealed that its first fund was one of the most successful ones it has had, which averaged an annual return of around 300% to the investors. It also added that no less than 13 portfolio companies have been able to raise $1.3 billion combined in the year 2021. Investors, like Greylock, Sequoia Capital, as well as Lightspeed Ventures have been personally involved in seeing this through. The total valuation from all investors came out to be $20 billion.
The company is currently focused on providing early-stage funding to startups it finds promising but, is hoping to support portfolio companies as well with its new fund, Opportunity Fund.