Cybersecurity was a hot area for venture investment in the first half of 2025, with total funding to the space hitting its highest level in three years.
Overall, investors poured $9.4 billion into global cybersecurity- and privacy-focused startups in the first six months of the year, per Crunchbase data. Funding shot up in the first quarter to hit $4.5 billion, then surged to $4.9 billion in the second quarter.
Q2 funding faves
For Q2, a handful of jumbo-sized financings played a core role in boosting the funding totals.
AI-enabled data security platform Cyera scored the largest round, pulling in $540 million in a June Series E at a $6 billion valuation. Lightspeed Venture Partners, Georgian and Greenoaks led the financing for the New York-based company.
Also in June, Tel Aviv-based cloud security provider Cato Networks announced that it raised $359 million in Series G funding at a valuation of more than $4.8 billion.The new financing brings total funding to date for the 10-year-old company to over $1 billion.
Overall, we counted at least 11 rounds of $100 million or more for security- and privacy-focused startups in Q2, listed below.
Exits
While investors poured large sums into cybersecurity last quarter, they didn’t pull nearly so much out.
Both disclosed-price startup M&A and IPO activity for the cybersecurity space were muted in Q2. Even if they weren’t, it’d be hard to vie with the first quarter, which brought us potentially the largest venture-backed startup acquisition ever: Google’s planned $32 billion purchase of Wiz.
On the IPO front, there were no public market debuts of venture-backed cybersecurity companies in Q2, per Crunchbase data.
As for M&A, we didn’t see large acquisitions with reported prices. However, there were a number of well-funded startups snapped up for undisclosed sums, including:
Red Canary, a cloud security provider, was acquired by Zscaler. Previously, Denver-based Red Canary had raised around $130 million in venture funding, per Crunchbase data.
TrueWork, a San Francisco-based income and employment verification platform, sold to background screening provider Checkr. Previously, TrueWork had raised around $119 million in venture funding.
Protect AI, a developer of tools to protect against AI security threats, sold to Palo Alto Networks. Previously, Seattle-based Protect AI had raised $108.5 million in venture funding.
AI in the zone
As in so many other industries, AI is playing a lead role in cybersecurity funding. Many of the largest recent rounds in the space have gone to startups at the intersection of these two areas, including Cyera, which touts an “AI-powered classification engine that auto-learns over time” to detect threats.
As AI-related companies continue to scoop up a big share of global funding, it’s not unlikely cybersecurity will follow suit. Meanwhile, with overall funding on the rise, and cybersecurity among the favored sectors of the moment, the overall picture is still looking bullish.
Now all we need are some IPOs.
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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