Israeli cyber startup Cynet closes $18 million funding round

Israeli cybersecurity startup Cynet announced Monday that it has closed a $18 million series B+ funding round led by BlueRed Partners, joined by strategic investors, Deutsche Telekom and Merlin International, with additional participation from existing investors Norwest Venture Partners and Ibex Investors. The latest round brings total investment in the company to $38 million.

The investment will be used to expand Cynet's development and support teams in its offices in Tel Aviv and the central Israeli city of Rishon LeZion and expand the company's presence in U.S. and international markets.

“The company is recruiting dozens of developers and sales personnel in the U.S. and Europe and we have opened a second office in Tel Aviv to draw in more developers,” Cynet CEO and co-founder Eyal Gruner said in an interview with Calcalist. Cynet currently employs 100 people, 85 in Israel and the rest in London and the U.S. “We started the round in the end of January and continued raising vigorously throughout the Covid-19 outbreak. We hadn’t planned to raise funds, but two strategic partners of ours, Deutsche Telekom and Merlin International, wanted to come on as investors. Merlin is one of the leading companies in the U.S. when it comes to sales of defense products, particularly to security organizations,” Gruner said.

Gruner did not disclose the company’s current valuation but said that it grew with the latest round and as the company continues its significant yearly expansion in terms of clients and sales. “With more than 200 clients our product enables small and medium-sized businesses security capabilities on par with those in use by giant organizations, all in one product.”

Cynet is driven by a vision to make breach protection within reach for any organization, regardless of its size and security skills. The company's solution is based on three core capabilities: combining a large number of technological capabilities that together allow the detection and prevention of a wide variety of cyberattacks, automation capabilities that autonomously investigate every threat or attack on the organization and then removes the threat independently, and a security operation center team that monitors organizations’ internal networks around the clock to ensure no attack is carried out and to offer support to clients if the need arises.

"Cynet has the requisite talent and technology to succeed in the white-hot cybersecurity market, particularly automated breach protection, which continues to present growth opportunities to innovation leaders," said Yishai Klein, Managing Partner of Singapore-based BlueRed Partners. "Their support and success rate for organizational cybersecurity initiatives with respect to threat prevention, detection and response have been very impressive. We are excited to lead this round as the company is well-positioned in the market to deliver highly differentiated and adaptive solutions. We look forward to helping the company expand into the Asia market.”