Cybereason has raised $275 million led former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s new fund to fulfill strong market demand for the company’s endpoint security technology.
The Boston-based vendor said the Series F funding validates Cybereason’s position in delivering Extended Detection and Response (XDR), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), next-generation antivirus (NGAV) and proactive threat hunting capabilities to customers. Cybereason is the first investment made by Liberty Strategic Capital, the private equity firm Mnuchin founded after leaving office.
Cybereason plans to use the proceeds to double its 850-person headcount over the next year and pursue acquisitions around emerging capabilities, Co-Founder and CEO Lior Div told CRN. The company hasn’t made any acquisitions in its first decade of existence, but is now looking for unique technology or algorithms in the XDR and cloud spaces that can accelerate the company’s innovation, according to Div (pictured below).
[Related: Rising Endpoint Security Star Cybereason Raises $200M, Eyes IPO]
The headcount growth will encompass aggressive expansion on both the research and development as well as the go-to-market side, with hires slated in everything from sales reps and business development reps to inside sales and channel account managers to marketing and finance positions, Div said. Cybereason sells exclusively through the channel, and wants to money to increase its brand recognition.
Cybereason’s approach to XDR stands apart from the competition thanks to the company’s ability to analyze unfiltered data in real-time rather than having to filter the data first before analyzing it, Div said. This has made it easier to Cybereason to collect additional types of data beyond the endpoint such as logs and network traffic, according to Div.
“The pressure that we see from hackers all over the world on companies is actually unbelievable,” Div told CRN. “It‘s never been like so severe like it is today. And that was part of the reason we decided to take the money and accelerate the growth of the company.”
Cybereason hopes the addition of Mnuchin to the company’s board of directors and former Joint Chief of Staff Joseph Dunford to the company’s advisory board will help Cybereason access U.S. government buyers, Div said. The company’s U.S. government business isn’t big today, but Div feels the company is well-positioned to take advantage of cybersecurity directives coming out of the Biden administration.
“Cybereason has established itself as a visionary in prevention, detection and response, and Liberty Strategic Capital is excited to partner with Cybereason team in their cutting-edge work to defend critical information networks, businesses, and governments around the world against the growing danger of cyberattacks,” Mnuchin said in a statement.
Cybereason was founded in 2012 and has raised $663 million in seven rounds of outside funding, according to LinkedIn and Crunchbase. The company most recently closed a $200 million Series E round in August 2019 led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. Irving Investors, Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers, and SoftBank participated in this week’s Season F funding.
The company completed its Series E financing round at an estimated valuation of between $3.1 billion and $3.3 billion, triple that of its previous financing round two years ago, according to Globes. Cybereason declined to comment to CRN on the company’s valuation