Hope you had a great weekend, and a Happy Almost Q3 to all those who celebrate!
Today’s issue is a special one for me, because today marks the fifth year of writing the newsletter! 🤯
Somehow, I'm caught off guard every year when this milestone comes around. When I stop and think about it, I’m often left in awe with how long this newsletter idea has lasted, how many opportunities it has opened for me personally and professionally, and how many of you have been on the journey with me.
Return on Security has been far more rewarding and far more work than I ever imagined it would be when I started out, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
All in all, I feel incredibly fortunate to get to write this newsletter every week, and I couldn’t be more grateful to you for taking the time to read it and/or share kind words.
The encouragement always means a lot and motivates me to keep going, and here’s to another 5 years! 🚀
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Table of Contents
😎 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!
Return on Security turns 5 this week! Five years from now, what does cyber actually look like?
Last issue’s vibe check:
Accenture just bought three cyber companies in one shot. Who makes the next billion-dollar cyber acquisition before year-end?
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ A hyperscaler (Google, Microsoft)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 A cyber incumbent (Palo Alto, CRWD)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ A data/AI platform (Databricks, Snowflake)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Other - drop the name in the comments
In last week’s vibe check, most people voted for a public cyber incumbent to make the next billion-dollar acquisition in the market. That stands to reason, given that most of the big, publicly disclosed transactions do come from the large cyber companies. There was a dead-even split for the hyperscalers and the data/AI platforms, which also makes sense.
Safe to say, there’s a lot of ground to be wound up, and it is very much a buyer’s market right now.
Some of the top comments from last week’s vibe check:
💬 “Anthropic”
💬 “Makes sense for data platforms to move into security since they already have the center of gravity for both AI and cyber.”
💬 “Agentic AI security, identity security, and data security remain gaps where acquisitions can accelerate roadmap execution.”
🔭 Zooming Out
Important stories hidden in the numbers
Buying Governance - A networking incumbent acquiring SurePath AI (AI risk and governance) is the tell of the week. When a category that barely existed 18 months ago is already consolidating, you know it’s a big deal. With platforms buying their way in because customers are asking "how do I control the agents?" faster than incumbents can ship a roadmap. We saw the same playbook play out in the Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) category. When acquisition beats build this early, the category is real, and the clock is short.
💰 Market Summary
Private Markets
7 companies from 3 countries raised $93.2M across 7 unique categories
Average disclosed deal size was $23.3M (median: $24.1M)
86% of funded companies were product companies
3 companies from 3 countries were acquired across 3 unique categories
67% of acquired companies were product companies
1 company announced layoffs
Public Markets
1 public company raised $5.5M via Post-IPO Equity
No public cyber companies had an earnings report last week
📸 YoY Snapshot
Rolling 13-week charts that compare funding and acquisitions week over week, year over year, comparing 2025 to 2026
$7.0B across 154 deals over the past quarter, down 22% from a year ago.
74 acquisitions over the past quarter, down 24% from a year ago.
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🪦 Stop, Drop, Shut’em Down…
None 😮💨
❌ Layoffs
🧩 Funding By Product Category
$30.0M for Application Security across 1 deal
$28.7M for Identity Verification across 2 deals
$25.0M for Security Operations across 1 deal
$15.0M for Cyber Insurance across 1 deal
An undisclosed amount for Data Privacy across 1 deal
An undisclosed amount for Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) across 1 deal
An undisclosed amount for Security Incident Management across 1 deal
🏢 Funding By Company
» Interact with all the data in real-time on The Signal dashboard or via the MCP.
Product Companies:
Mitigata, an India-based cyber risk insurance platform, raised $15.0M in Series B funding from Bessemer Venture Partners. (more)
Trust Stamp, a United States-based privacy-first AI identity verification and biometric authentication platform, raised a $5.5M Post-IPO Equity. (more)
Service Companies:
Center Technologies, a United States-based managed IT services provider and MSSP, raised an undisclosed amount of private equity from LightBay Capital. (more)
SEC filings may reflect partial or interim fundraising and can understate the final round numbers.
🌎 Funding By Country
$60.5M for the United States across 5 deals
$38.2M for India across 2 deals
An undisclosed amount for Turkey across 1 deal
🤝 Mergers & Acquisitions
Product Companies:
Identiq, an Israel-based private network for identity validation, was acquired by Incode Technologies for an undisclosed amount. Identiq has not previously disclosed funding. (more)
SurePath AI, a United States-based AI risk and governance platform, was acquired by F5 for an undisclosed amount. SurePath AI had previously raised $5.2M in funding. (more)
Service Companies:
🤘 IPO-h Yeah
None
📚 Great Reads
The Developer Endpoint Security Problem: Developer workflows are among the most privileged resources in any company, and a single compromised developer workstation is no longer “just an endpoint incident.”
*87% of security teams say they're ready for agentic AI. 46% admit they're not. - Delinea surveyed 2,001 IT decision-makers across 7 countries and found a dangerous gap between AI security confidence and the controls that would actually back it up.
Why Being a CISO Is the Most Fascinating Job in the Building - The CISO job is five jobs that were never designed to intersect. Simon Ganiere explains why he thinks the CISO job is the most fascinating job in the building, and how to work within its structures.
*Sponsored
🧪 Labs
Big if true
🫡 Signing Off
Have questions, comments, or feedback? Just reply directly, I’d love to hear from you.
If you find this newsletter useful and know others who would, I'd really appreciate it if you'd forward it to them!
Mike P
P.S. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.