Cyberstarts, an Israel-based venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage cybersecurity startups, has announced raising $480 million to make follow-on investments.
In a statement, the firm said the Opportunity Fund will take advantage of follow-on opportunities from its portfolio companies that are raising Series A and Series B rounds.
The VC firm, backed by Sequoia Capital, announced the fund raising a year after it secured $200 million for its Opportunity Fund, its third vehicle in five years.
According to a form filed with the S.E.C., Cyberstarts Opportunity Fund, L.P., 57 investors already have invested in the offering, which would have a final target of $600m.
Investors and limited partners include the industry’s most prominent leaders. These investors provide strategic counsel to portfolio companies and entrepreneurs, from guidance on product-market fit to talent recruitment and everything in between.
Founded in 2018 by Gili Raanan, with an initial fund, Cyberstarts I, of $54 million. In 2020, Cyberstarts launched its second fund, Cyberstarts II, with $100 million to back cybersecurity startups in seed and Series A rounds.
Commenting on the funding, Raanan said:
Most of the entrepreneurs we have partnered with manage to hit the ground and grow into significant businesses over a short period of time. The Opportunity fund is another assurance for them and a new generation of entrepreneurs that we can and will support them with a constant flow of cash as they grow their businesses.
The firm’s portfolio companies include Israeli-founded cloud security startup Bionic, sold to US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike for an estimated $350 million; Fireblocks, which has developed software to securely transfer assets across parties and wallets and last year raised over $500 million at a valuation of $8 billion; and Axis Cybersecurity, which built a cloud security platform and was sold to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) earlier this year.