Skybox Security, a US-based cybersecurity technology provider backed by trading and technology firm Susquehanna International Group (SIG), yesterday agreed $150m in equity funding led by private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.
CVC Capital’s Growth Fund will provide $100m of the capital, while the other $50m will be put up by diversified investment firm Pantheon.
Skybox supplies cybersecurity management software that can integrate with more than 120 networking and security technologies. It can analyse complex physical, virtual, cloud and operational technology (OT) networks, and recommends actions to seal exposed areas.
The company, which generally serves governmental and large corporate customers, will invest the funding in sales and marketing, customer care and R&D, and may also look to grow through M&A deals in the cybersecurity sector.
SIG’s Susquehanna Growth Equity unit led a $6m round for Skybox in 2011 that followed $36.5m in funding, according to VentureBeat, and SIG subsequently led another $6m round in 2014. The other participants in both rounds were not disclosed.
Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, the venture capital arm of financial services firm Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), had joined Benchmark, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Rembrandt Venture Partners, Carmel Ventures and Valley Venture Capital to invest $2m in Skybox in 2009.
Providence Strategic Growth (PSG), the growth equity affiliate of private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, provided Skybox’s last funding, in the form of a $96m investment in February 2016.
Gidi Cohen, Skybox’s chief executive, said: “Enterprises, governments… everyone is either embarking on or going through massive digital transformation, and this means new challenges for security because the attack surface of these organisations is growing more complex.
“We have been consistently evolving our technology to meet those challenges. With this investment, we’ll accelerate that innovation, focusing on some of the most critical areas, such as security management for the cloud and the OT networks that control critical infrastructure.”
CVC Capital managing director Jason Glass and John Clark, managing partner of CVC Growth Partners, will join Skybox’s board of directors in conjunction with the firm’s investment.