Data Loss Prevention (DLP) , Endpoint Security , Security Operations

Data Protection Startup Cyera Raises $300M on $3B Valuation

Cyera closed its second massive funding round of 2024, raising another $300 million and doubling its valuation as the startup consolidates the data security market.

See Also: How to Avoid a Data Breach

The New York-based startup said the Series D investment will help Cyera expand its product portfolio in areas such as data loss prevention and identity security and use AI to deepen its data security capabilities, according to co-founder and CEO Yotam Segev. Cyera's valuation jumped from $1.4 billion in April to $3 billion today thanks to rapid customer acquisition and a bigger product portfolio, according to Segev.

"Customers want more of the value that they're receiving," Segev told Information Security Media Group. "The investors are looking to the customers for guidance, and they are really being led by the customers, the CISOs, the enterprises. We've done a lot in this time period, even though it's a short time period. And the investors see that that is going to continue to be the trend."

From Posture Management to Data Loss Prevention, Identity

The Series D round was led by Accel and Sapphire Ventures, who Segev said were impressive by Cyera's ability to drive innovation in data security and its position as a leader in the hypergrowth market. By rapidly securing meaningful partnership with Fortune 1000 enterprises since Cyera's $300 million Series C financing in April, Segev said Cyera has shown an ability to scale its offerings and deliver greater value (see: Cyera Gets $300M at $1.4B Valuation to Fuel Safe AI Adoption).

"I think the story is the story of hypergrowth, the ability to quickly land within the Fortune 1000 with some of the best customers in the cybersecurity market," Segev said. "And the ability to grow those from an initial partnership that might have been substantial to three, six, nine months later, the partnerships are already expanding and growing because the company has more value to deliver."

Segev said Cyera has evolved from data security posture management to a full-fledged platform, with new features around data access governance and identity security to help enterprises answer critical questions related to who has access to sensitive data and whether that access is appropriate. And the buy of Trail enables enterprises to operationalize data protection without traditional hardware dependencies.

"You have to instrument the identity plane alongside the data plane," Segev said. "And by instrumenting the identity plane and correlating between these two planes, you're opening up something that never existed for the enterprise, the ability to answer the question, 'What identities can access what data across our entire enterprise stack?' And that question is huge, because it's at the core of blast radius."

Buying data loss prevention startup Trail for $156 million allows Cyera to offer a time-efficient, scalable solution that integrates seamlessly with existing enterprise systems like Microsoft Purview. Trail uses AI to monitor data at various choke points, delivering insights to help organizations prevent data breaches and improve compliance, which Segev said reduces deployment complexity and boosts time to value (see: AI Powers Cyera’s $162M Buy of Data Security Startup Trail).

"Even with an agentless approach, without replacing the agent you already have in place, we can accelerate your DLP program in a way that changes completely the ROI equation," Segev said.

Choosing a Consolidator in Cyera

Segev said Cyera aims to simplify the complexity of enterprise data security tools by consolidating them into a unified platform. Current market solutions often require 20-to-30 separate tools to implement a comprehensive data security program, which Segev said leads to inefficiencies and high costs. Cyera seeks to be the single orchestrated platform that delivers end-to-end data security.

"We want to be a consolidator of data security," Segev said. "We want to be a provider that is able to enable enterprises to build their data security program, end-to-end, on top of Cyera today. Many customers are telling me it's taking them 20, even 30 products in order to build an open-ended data security program. That's an impossible reality. That's not what I want. I want consolidation."

Segev said Cyera's data security platform address a wide range of use cases from compliance and incident response to business acceleration. Specifically, Segev said Cyera's automated data inventory and classification tools enable enterprises to quickly respond to audits and regulatory requirements. Plus, Cyera enables organizations to answer critical breach-related questions within hours instead of months.

Cyera plans to use its funding to scale its product capabilities, expand its market presence and explore strategic M&A opportunities. While Segev sees profitability as achievable, he emphasizes growth and innovation as the company’s current priorities. The ultimate goal is to build a robust business that delivers long-term value to customers, with IPO considerations being secondary to these objectives.

"I think profitability is very achievable when you need it or when you want it," Segev said. "Right now, our focus is growth, and that's what is best for our shareholders and best for the market. It's allowing us to grow our offering and rethink something that hasn't existed in the market, a unified, comprehensive data security platform, which is something that customers never had an opportunity to purchase."