LightCyber raises $20 million to boost sales globally
Investors include US firm Access Industries and Shlomo Kramer, the cybersecurity company says
Shoshanna Solomon was The Times of Israel's Startups and Business reporter
LightCyber, the Israeli cybersecurity company headquartered in Los Altos, California, has raised $20 million from investors to boost its sales and marketing efforts.
Investors included US-based Access Industries, through its Israeli technology investments entity, Claltech, and Shlomo Kramer, the founder and chief executive of Cato Networks, the company said in a statement. Existing investors Battery Ventures, Glilot Capital Partners and Amplify Partners also participated in this second funding round, bringing the total amount of funds raised to $34 million.
LightCyber says its Magna platform “accurately and efficiently” detects attacks on companies regardless of the kind of attack, reducing the length of the event and minimizing the damage. Using behavioral and active breach detection, the platform continuously monitors the network, its users and device behavior to find attacker activities. Once the system alerts customers about an attack, it is an actual meaningful event and not a false alarm, the company says on its website.
Lloyd’s of London has estimated that cyberattacks cost businesses $400 billion a year while Juniper Research says that the average cost of each data breach will top $150 million by 2020. Today, less than 1 percent of enterprises have the capability to find an active attacker at work on their network before theft or damage occurs, the company said.
LightCyber has shown that its behavioral attack detection platform “can provide organizations with an unprecedented level of security visibility that can pinpoint active network attackers quickly and accurately and curtail a potential data breach,” Kramer said. “The market need and opportunity for the Magna platform is extraordinarily high, so it is important to facilitate rapid global expansion.”
Cato Networks’ Kramer has a track record of backing cybersecurity companies. He was a co-founder of Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., which created the first commercial Firewall to protect business from hacker attacks, and a founder and chief executive officer of Imperva Inc. a manufacturer of security software for businesses. Kramer has made early investments in cyber security companies including Palo Alto Networks and Trusteer, which was acquired by acquired by IBM.
Access Industries is a US-based firm with investments in a variety of technology companies, including Square, Spotify, Beats Music and Warner Music Group. Access invests in Israeli tech companies primarily through its local entity ClalTech, with Israeli-based investments including Zerto, ironSource, Yotpo and Zooz.
LightCyber, which is already selling its products to customers in the financial, legal, telecom, government and technology sectors, has been expanding its operations globally, including in the UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It also started operations in the Asia-Pacific countries earlier this year.
The company expects the number of employees to rise to 100 employees by the end of the year from 70 globally today.
