Syn Ventures, a venture capital firm founded by former Fortune 500 executives, officially launched this week with a $165 million fund to invest in technologies that aim to disrupt the cybersecurity industry.
The West Palm Beach-based firm is led by Jay Leek, the former chief information security officer for New York private equity giant The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) and Patrick Heim, former head of security at Dropbox (Nasdaq: DBX) and chief trust officer for Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) in San Francisco.
Leek is also the co-founder of North Palm Beach venture capital firm ClearSky, with Heim as partner and CISO. ClearSky raised a combined $851 million for three different funds from 2012 to 2019, according to Crunchbase data.
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Leek and Heim have partnered to lead early funding rounds for more than 40 security industry startups, including three investments through Syn Ventures. The firm recently led a $15 million Series A funding round for Sevco Security, a cybersecurity startup headquartered in Austin, Texas, and contributed to the massive $543 million Series A round completed by Boston-based Transmit Security, a password-free authentication platform.
Leek described cybersecurity as an "existential challenge" facing every sector of technology.
“This drives a vast array of investment opportunities where we can leverage our network and experience to unfairly accelerate growth for our portfolio companies," he added.
Syn Ventures will target early-stage tech startups in the industrial security, national defense, privacy, regulatory compliance and data governance industries, in addition to cybersecurity. On top of capital, the firm will activate its network of security professionals to offer guidance and support to founders as they build their ventures.
Heim said conflicts between regulators, businesses and the rapid-pace evolution of technology creates security gaps thats those pose opportunities for entrepreneurs.
“Security is never ‘done’," he said in a statement. "It's these opportunities that Syn is targeting."
The demand for cybersecurity technology is rising as more companies switch to cloud-based storage and sharing models vulnerable to information breaches. An estimated $3.7 billion was invested in cybersecurity startups during the first quarter of 2021, up nearly 61% from the same period the year before, Crunchbase reports. Investments in cybersecurity businesses surpassed $7.8 billion in 2020, with U.S. firms receiving 76% of that funding.
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