An Arlington cybersecurity training and education platform that spun out of Graham Holdings Co. (NYSE: GHC) years ago is now merging with a Maryland firm to create a cyber media and education brand that's already raised a $5.4 million round of funding.
Arlington's CyberVista has combined with CyberWire, an audio-based cyber media company based in Fulton, to form N2K Networks, or “news to knowledge” network. With hopes of capturing the entire learning lifecycle for a niche industry like cybersecurity in one place, the new company aims to create a single platform where users can learn a new industry skill or trend, as well as advance their cybersecurity careers.
Peter Kilpe, founder and CEO of CyberWire, will become chief executive of N2K Networks, while CyberVista CEO Simone Petrella will lead its operations as president.
“Oftentimes, learning is thought of as this discrete activity of going to classes and taking webinars, getting a certification. But really, it’s a full spectrum of experiences,” Kilpe said in an interview. “The media you consume, people you know, events you go to, course you take, all of that” contributes to learning.
As part of its formation, N2K announced a $5.4 million Series A round led by Graham Holdings, a holding company for education, media, tech, auto, health care, food and other businesses that launched CyberVista in 2015. DataTribe, a firm with a Fulton presence and cyber and data science focus, also participated in the round.
“Simone and Peter have each built businesses that provide cybersecurity solutions to the market around news, education, and workforce training,” said Tim O’Shaughnessy, president and CEO of Graham Holdings, in a statement. “We believe we're able to offer solutions to employers across the full stack of their needs.”
Now, the 60-person combined company will look for office space in the Columbia and Fulton areas in Maryland, as well as parts of the D.C. area, with a goal to expand further. The co-founders plan to use the latest funding to grow the team to a 75-to-85-person range in the next 12 to 18 months.
CyberVista alone had 37 full-time and 11 part-time employees, as of Graham Holdings' last annual report filed in February. Petrella had built the company to help clear hurdles she consistently had to jump over herself in her 15 years in the industry when trying to build cybersecurity teams. She started out as a threat intel analyst in the Department of Defense and, later as a team manager, found herself losing employees every 18 to 24 months — they would come to her office, telling her about a competitor that was offering a 40% raise.
Workforce needs have similarly boomed across the global cybersecurity field. In an eight-year stretch between 2013 and 2021, the number of unfilled cybersecurity jobs worldwide went from 1 million to 3.5 million, according to a report from Cybersecurity Ventures. That also means the competitive landscape for firms like N2K is growing, with offerings from the ISACA, SANS Institute and the feds themselves, including the National Institutes of Standards and Technology and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
For N2K, the goal is to build out a development team and technology stack to support its podcast and cybersecurity training content. It hopes to hire more content creators for both the media and video sides of its educational training platform.
“The idea [is] that media and education can co-exist and symbiotically float from one to the other and back,” Petrella said in an interview. “This landscape is shifting. The job roles that exist today are not going to be what exist next year or a year from now. What’s consistent is having a constant news source to access, but also an infrastructure to absorb and adapt to those new roles."
