Cyber security start-ups gain power

Investment into the cyber security sector is ever increasing as companies realise the importance of protection against these threats. In addition to this, cyber security start-ups are coming to the surface in a powerful stance, like Tanium, which has doubled its funds to $120 million in five months.

Having raised these funds from TPG, Institutional Venture Partners, T Rowe Price, as well as, Andreessen Horowitz, the business that provides systems so that IT departments can reach computers in seconds is now valued at $3.5 billion, according to the Financial Times.

The fundraising of $120 million is one of the largest for a private cyber security start-up during a year when venture capital funding has had a boom in spending on technology. Companies are being advised that budgets should be in place in case large attacks happen such as the recent Ashley Madison scandal.

Alongside this, the Financial Times highlighted data from PrivCo that mobile security start-up, Only Lookout raised $150 million last year and antivirus organisation AVG Technologies attracted $200 million in 2009.

Co-founder and CTO of Tanium, Orion Hindawi, uses the word “disciplined” to describe how investors are preparing for cyber-attacks. “A year ago, everybody who had a good idea was getting funded, whether they had any capacity to execute on that idea. We’re starting to see, especially in the higher echelons of the VC community, people recognising that they were overfunded and a lot didn’t do anything but spend a lot of money on sales and marketing,” Hindawi said.

Partner at TPG, Bryan Taylor, has confidence in working with Tanium and praised Hindawi to be “one of the top half-dozen brilliant infrastructure software engineers in the world.” Taylor continued to say that Tanium, as a communication platform, had the “potential to reshape how corporate America secures and manages its data.”

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