Japanese tech giant SoftBank is doubling down on its investment in Cybereason, a cybersecurity startup in Boston.
Cybereason announced on Wednesday that it has raised a new $100 million round from SoftBank, which follows a $59 million Series C round that was led by the Japanese company in fall 2015. Total funding is now $189 million, and its other investors have included CRV, Spark Capital and Lockheed Martin, which, like SoftBank, started out as a customer.
The company's latest fundraise comes after it increased annual revenue by 500 percent last year and grew its workforce by nearly 200 percent to 300 employees — a number CEO and c0-founder Lior Diov told BostInno he expects to double within the next year and a half. Of the 300 employees, 110 are located in the company's Boston headquarters, with the remaining employees working out of its London and Tel Aviv offices. Diov said the company has over 250 customers and tens of millions in annual revenue, though he declined to get more specific.
It's also happening as U.S. intelligence officers warn of a "cyber cold war," with Russian hackers now thought to have attacked voting systems in a total of 39 states in last year's elections. The National Health Service in the United Kingdom was also suspected to be the victim of a cyber attack earlier this month, from hackers in North Korea.
"Today what we’re experiencing in the world, there is a cyber cold war," Diov said.
Cybereason provides endpoint detection and response software that finds threats by looking for anomalies in the transfer of metadata within computers and other devices that belong within an organization. The company said its advanced monitoring services "have protected hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies from highly advanced attacks." Those kinds of attacks include the WannaCry ransomware virus, which can lock people and entire companies out of accessing their files.
"SoftBank tested a number of cybersecurity products from all over the world, but Cybereason’s products are by far better than those of their competitors. We strongly believe Cybereason will be one of the global leaders in cybersecurity,” Ken Miyauchi, president and CEO of SoftBank, said in a statement.
