💰 Security, Funded #213 - Firefighting vs Fire Prevention

Get cybersecurity market and intelligence insights, including key trends and industry analysis, for the week of September 22, 2025.

Author

Mike Privette
September 29, 2025 • Reading Time: 11 minutes

Security, Funded by Return on Security, is a weekly analysis of the public and private economic activity in the cybersecurity market. This week’s issue is brought to you by Palo Alto Networks and Permiso Security.

Hey -

I hope you had a great weekend!

Look, ma, new charts! 📊 

I’ve been working on creating higher-quality visuals for the newsletter, so while I’m in Build Mode, please let me know if there is any new data or charts you’d like to see. Making these charts has reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:

“What’s in a chart? That which we call unstructured data by any other name would be transformed into actionable insights to align stakeholders.”

Gotta love the classics

Also, an open call - if you’re at a VC or PE firm and you’ve raised a new fund this year to invest (mostly) in cyber, I want to hear about it and will start tracking these as I capture more of what runs the cybersecurity economy.

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😎 Vibe Check

Click the options below to vote on whether you are a practitioner, founder, or investor. Feel free to leave a comment, and I'll feature the best takes in next week’s write-up!

How would you describe the structure of your organization's AI governance committee?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Last issue’s vibe check:
How would you honestly describe your AI governance right now?
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📋 Basic guidelines that hopefully someone follows
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤞 "Use your best judgment" approach
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📊 Comprehensive policies with regular reviews
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🆘 What governance? We're just trying to keep up!

Well, it seems that the future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed. Not when it comes to the matter of AI Governance, at least. I think a “basic guidelines” approach is a great place to start, so long as you work to find and understand what people are actually using. Otherwise, you’re just wishing things would go the right way.

I know this is a fast-moving space, and over the next few weeks, we’re going to explore it further and collectively gain a better understanding of AI Governance. Let’s get this bread together, family. 🥐 😤 👊 

Some of the top comments from last week’s vibe check:

💬 "Too busy firefighting to do fire prevention.”

💰 Market Summary

Private Markets

  • 10 companies from 3 countries raised $94.6M across 10 unique product categories

  • Average deal size was $9.5M (median: $6.5M)

  • 78% of funding went to product companies

  • 6 companies from 4 countries were acquired for $450.0M

  • 67% of M&A activity went to product companies

Public Markets

  • No public cyber companies had an earnings report

As of market close on September 26, 2025.

📸 YoY Snapshot

Rolling 12-week charts that compare funding and acquisitions weekly in a year-over-year (YoY) view between 2024 and 2025.

Funding activity over the past 12 weeks totaled $3.9B across 153 deals (mean: $29.2M, median: $7.0M), representing a 19% increase compared to the same period last year, when $3.3B was invested across 121 deals.

M&A activity remained strong with 75 acquisitions completed over the trailing 12 weeks (averaging 6.2 per week), a 32% increase from the 57 acquisitions during the same period in the previous year.

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☎️ Earnings Reports

This analysis is personal research and opinions only. This is not financial or investing advice. Do your own due diligence before making investment decisions.

Earnings reports from last week: None

Earning reports to watch this coming week: None

🧩 Funding By Product Category

  • $35.0M for AI Security across 1 deal

  • $16.0M for Penetration Testing across 1 deal

  • $10.0M for Data Loss Prevention (DLP) across 1 deal

  • $8.2M for Cybersecurity Education & Training across 1 deal

  • $7.0M for Fraud and Financial Crime Protection across 1 deal

  • $6.0M for Confidential Computing across 1 deal

  • $5.0M for Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) across 1 deal

  • $3.5M for Security and Compliance Automation across 1 deal

  • $2.6M for Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) across 1 deal

  • $1.3M for Digital Footprint Management across 1 deal

🏢 Funding By Company

Product Companies:

Service Companies:

  • Unit 221b, a United States-based managed security services and penetration testing firm, raised a $5.0M Seed from J2 Ventures. (more)

🌎 Funding By Country

  • $82.9M for the United States across 8 deals

  • $8.2M for Germany across 1 deal

  • $3.5M for Canada across 1 deal

🤝 Mergers & Acquisitions

Product Companies:

  • MarkMonitor, a United States-based brand fraud and abuse monitoring platform, was acquired by Com Laude for $450.0M. MarkMonitor had previously raised $45.4M in funding. (more)

  • Seckiot, a France-based operational technology security platform, was acquired by Seclab for an undisclosed amount. Seckiot has not previously disclosed any funding events. (more)

  • Allseek, a Belgium-based continuous penetration testing platform, was acquired by Aikido Security for an undisclosed amount. Allseek has not previously disclosed any funding events. (more)

  • Haicker, a Switzerland-based continuous AI penetration testing platform, was acquired by Aikido Security for an undisclosed amount. Haicker had previously raised $260159 in funding. (more)

Service Companies:

  • RangeForce, a United States-based cyber defensive education and training platform, was acquired by Cyberbit for an undisclosed amount. RangeForce had previously raised $38.1M in funding. (more)

  • Security Compliance Associates, a United States-based professional services firm focused on security and compliance assessments, was acquired by 360 Advanced for an undisclosed amount. Security Compliance Associates has not previously disclosed any funding events. (more)

📚 Great Reads

  • Good CISO / Bad CISO - This post outlines the key differences between effective and ineffective CISOs, emphasizing that successful security leaders are business executives who manage technology risk rather than just IT managers who manage security tools.

  • That Secret Service SIM Farm Story is Bogus - A fascinating take on the recent "national security threat" that the US Secret Service took down. The secret ingredient is crime.

*A message from our partner

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Data Methodology and Sources

  • All of the data is captured point-in-time from publicly available sources.

  • All financial figures are converted to U.S. Dollars (USD) at the current spot rate at the time of collection.

  • Company country locations are pulled from publicly available sources.

  • Companies are categorized using the Return on Security system.

  • Sometimes the deal details, such as who led the round, how much was raised, or the deal stage, may be updated after publication.

  • Let us know if you spot any errors, and we’ll fix them.

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