Artificial intelligence (AI) poses both significant threats and exciting opportunities in cybersecurity. One startup seizing this dual challenge is Cyera, which has just announced a substantial funding round. Cyera's innovative AI-driven platform empowers organizations to track the location and movement of their data across networks—essential for implementing effective strategies to safeguard that data against cyberattacks and preventing unintended exposure to large language models. The company has successfully raised $300 million in Series C funding, bringing its valuation to $1.4 billion.
This fundraising round is particularly noteworthy, not just for its impressive scale, but also because it nearly triples Cyera's valuation in under a year; the company previously secured $100 million in a Series B round in June 2023. This remarkable growth underscores Cyera's momentum and signals a robust outlook on the market, despite the ongoing fundraising challenges faced by tech startups. Although Cyera didn't disclose specific metrics, its diverse clientele includes several multinational corporations.
Reports provided early insights into this funding round, confirming key details such as the round's size and the identity of the lead investor, Coatue, which is joining Cyera's roster of investors for the first time. Other new supporters include Spark Capital, Georgian, and strategic partner AT&T Ventures.
AT&T’s involvement is especially notable. Earlier this year, after a major data breach in 2019 exposed sensitive information of 7.6 million current customers and over 65 million former ones, the telecom giant initiated a widespread account reset. Such incidents often prompt organizations to enlist help from cybersecurity firms like Cyera, sometimes proactively, and other times reactively to avert potential crises.
Cyera's CEO, Yotam Segev, shared insights from his experiences with Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs): “Every month, I receive a call from a CISO in urgent need: ‘We have an incident; how quickly can you scan our environment?’ We respond promptly, deploying a team to determine what data may have been compromised. Often, they aren’t even fully aware of what data has been breached.” (It's worth noting that AT&T's breach occurred before Cyera was founded.)
In essence, Cyera's platform conducts comprehensive assessments of an organization's data, identifying its origins, storage locations, and usage. This task is increasingly complex in today's hybrid environments, where organizations utilize various applications, devices, cloud services, and on-premises servers. Currently, data volume stands at tens of zettabytes, with projections suggesting growth into the hundreds of zettabytes in the coming years. This tangled web of connections renders data auditing particularly challenging.
Cyera belongs to the broader "posture management" sector, populated by various players, including industry leaders like CrowdStrike, Zscaler, Wiz, Palo Alto Networks, and Fortinet. While these firms agree on the necessity of effective posture management to locate and safeguard assets, Cyera distinguishes itself with its AI-enhanced approach. By anticipating future applications and use cases, Cyera is focused on addressing the specific challenges posed by AI advancements in enterprise data management.
Segev remarked, “AI security represents one of the most significant gaps for current enterprises. Without control over their data, and with AI being data-dependent, organizations are at risk. If you’re unaware of what data you hold, where it resides, and whether it’s up-to-date, how can you fully leverage AI technology? The risk of losing proprietary data becomes a critical concern.”
Segev and co-founder Tamar Bar-Ilan, both veterans of the Israeli military, benefit from rigorous training in implementing cutting-edge technology in real-world scenarios. Their entrepreneurial spirit, combined with effective salesmanship, has caught investors' attention.
“We plan to utilize this investment to enhance our data security offerings,” Segev emphasized. “Our clients prefer a unified solution rather than piecing together multiple products from various vendors.”
Longstanding supporters Sequoia, Accel, Redpoint, and Cyberstarts contributed to this Series C funding, bringing Cyera's total capital raised to $460 million in just three years. Though Doug Leone has stepped back from active partnership at Sequoia, he continues to serve on the board of select companies, including Cyera. "The co-founders are exceptional; they recognized a significant impending need for data security," Leone stated.
David Schneider, a general partner at Coatue Management, echoed this sentiment, comparing Cyera's customer response to that of early ServiceNow days. "I believe Cyera will become integral to enterprises' data security in light of AI advancements," he affirmed.
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