St. Petersburg-based cybersecurity services firm Deepwatch has raised $53 million in new funding, the company announced Monday.
The new round was led by banking giant Goldman Sachs and included Baltimore's ABS Capital Partners. The company had previously raised $23 million in funding at a $69 million valuation in April 2019, according to data from PitchBook.
Proceeds from the investment will be used to accelerate research and development of the company’s cloud security platform and the expansion of its partner ecosystem, Deepwatch said in a release. Goldman Sachs Growth executive Holger Staude will join the Deepwatch board.
Deepwatch lists offices in Denver and Falls Church, Virginia. It has more than 200 employees across the country with its top executives based in the Washington, D.C. area.
"The demand for managed security services is expected to grow as staffing and skill shortages, an ever-evolving threat landscape and an increasing compliance burden lead companies of all sizes to offload their security needs to specialist providers like Deepwatch,” Morgan Gerlak, an executive at Goldman Sachs Growth, said in a statement.
The Tampa Bay region is becoming a cybersecurity giant home. The Deepwatch funding is the latest of several in recent months: In August, cyber company ReliaQuest raised $300 million from global investment firm KKR & Co (NYSE: KKR). KnowBe4, a Clearwater-based firm, also raised $300 million from KKR in 2019 and is now reportedly eyeing an IPO. Abacode, a Tampa cybersecurity and compliance firm, raised $4.8 million in January 2020 from local firm Ballast Point Ventures.
Many of those cyber giants, including KnowBe4, A-LIGN and ConnectWise, also recently funded a Tampa Bay Wave cohort that will further support the local cybersecurity industry. The cohort, called the Cybertech | X Accelerator program, will help startups in the cybersecurity sector.
