Cybersecurity Market Update: January 2024 Insights & Trends

Welcome to the monthly wrap-up issue of Return on Security, where I’ll cover this month’s most relevant cybersecurity market and funding updates. I spend hours collecting, curating, and analyzing this information every week, so you don’t need to - here we go👇

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January 2024 Highlights

From startups to giants, the cybersecurity landscape is shifting under the weight of innovation and market demands.

• As expected, January 2024 saw the big bets continuing in AI Security and Security for AI domains. I expect this trend to continue as more funding dollars are poured into this sub-market, more product differentiation occurs, and companies try to perform a balancing act between rapid technology advancements and market sustainability.

• Another month, another record-setting cybersecurity acquisition. January 2024 saw the second largest cybersecurity company acquisition, with HP acquiring Juniper Networks for $14.0B.

• January was a month of contradictions, with massive layoffs across several cybersecurity and technology companies combined with big funding and M&A activities across others in the same spaces.

By the Numbers

A look at what moved the cybersecurity market in January 2024:

Funding Insights

Approximately $979.4M was invested in 43 cybersecurity companies across 28 unique product categories in January 2024, with Data Protection and Identity and Access Management (IAM) leading the way.

Mergers & Acquisitions

21 companies across 16 unique product categories were acquired or had a merger event for more than $14.0B in January 2024. Managed Security Services Providers (MSSPs) and Professional Services companies were the most acquired kinds of companies last month.

Global Funding Distribution

80% of cybersecurity funding in January 2024 went to United States-based companies, ~14% went to Israel-based companies, and ~4% went to Denmark-based companies.

My Work

My work from this past month.

This Month’s Top Great Reads

Some of my favorite Great Reads from this past month.

• 7 Things to Expect From AI in 2024+ - To predict AI's progress, you have to ignore the tech itself and ask what people want from it

• AI and Trust - Bruce Schneier talks about the intersections of AI, trust, and innate biases as they relate to social, governmental, and technological constructs.

• Dry January: The Sobering State of Public Markets for Cybersecurity Companies - Being a cybersecurity unicorn feels like a never-ending Dry January right now. It's not as bad as it sounds, I promise.

• Google Search (and Spam) Really Has Gotten Worse - German researchers found that Google Search has gotten worse and has been taken over by dynamic adversarial spam in the form of low-quality, mass-produced commercial content thanks to the explosion of generative AI content.

• Regretful Accelerationism - This post highlights the growing disconnect between the physical and online worlds, emphasizing the impacts of AI and the Internet on society, content creation, and human interaction. If you're a fan of the book "Ready Player One," this will be a good read.

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Return on Security Newsletter Issues

Here are the weekly newsletters from this month.

• 💰 Security, Funded #125 - 🤖 AI in Cybersecurity: Trust or Turmoil in 2024?

• 💰 Security, Funded #126 - 2024's Bold Beginnings

• 💰 Security, Funded #127 - Quantum Gains 💪

• 💰 Security, Funded #128 - Cyber IPO Watch 2024 👀

• 💰 Security, Funded #129 - Tech Layoffs & Tight Belts

Data Collection Methodology

A few tenants I follow for this data:

• All of this data was captured point-in-time from publicly available sources, most often at publication, through the Return on Security newsletter.

• All financial figures were converted to U.S. dollars when collected.

• The classification of companies into specific categories is conducted based on Return on Security’s categorization system. I ensure that each company in the database addresses a cybersecurity challenge and correctly assign it to the relevant category.

Thank you for reading. If you liked this summary, please share it with your friends, colleagues, and everyone interested in the cybersecurity market.

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