Gili Raanan, general partner at Sequoia Capital Israel, has raised $54m for a new cybersecurity-focused fund.
The venture capital fund, called Cyberstarts, has hit its target after collecting commitments from 56 LPs according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange commission. However, it is unclear from the filing if the fund has officially closed.
Investors in the fund include Shlomo Kramer and Marius Nacht, two of the co-founders of Check Point Software; Amichai Shulman, co-founder of Imperva; Mickey Boodaei and Rakesh Loonkar, two of the founders of Trusteer; Nir Zuk, the founder of Palo Alto Networks; and Assaf Rappaport, a founder of Adallom according to its website.
California-based Sequoia is also an investor in the fund, which will invest in 10 cybersecurity firms, a report from Reuters added. Raanan is expected to continue to manage Sequoia’s portfolio in Israel, however; he did not respond to a request for comment.
Cyberstarts’ aim is to partner with ‘amazing entrepreneurs solving the most critical pain points in cybersecurity’, and help them build the most ‘important cybersecurity companies’ of the next 10 years.
Raanan has been the general partner at Sequioa Capital Israel since 2009. Prior to this, he started and led two private companies in the enterprise software market till their acquisition by EMC and IBM. He previously worked for 10 years at the Israeli Intelligence agency, and for this work, he was awarded the Israel Security Presidential award in 1996 and the Israeli Defense Forces Innovation award in 1992. Raanan is also a recognised inventor of CAPTCHA, one of the world’s most popular security algorithms.
Last year, the North American cybersecurity market saw more than $2.09bn invested across the four quarters according to data by RegTech Analyst. The majority of the capital came in Q2 2017, with investment hitting $1.103bn.
Earlier this year, Israeli cybersecurity startup empow closed its Series B funding round on $10m. Ascent Venture Partners participated as a new investor in the round, joining the company’s existing investors. Headquartered in Israel, with a North American marketing and sales office in Boston (Cambridge), the company serves medium and large enterprises and service providers in North America and Europe.
Expel, a transparent managed security provider, also recently closed $20m Series B funding round led by Scale Venture Partners. Battery Ventures, Greycroft, Lightbank, New Enterprise Associates, Paladin Capital Group and Profile Capital Management also participated in the funding.
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