Statistics maintained by CB Insights show that 2017 is on track to be a record-setting year for cybersecurity funding activity.
There were a total of 291 funding deals involving private cybersecurity companies in the first two quarters of this year alone, making them the busiest from an investment standpoint in the last five years.
CB Insight's research shows that investors poured some $1.6 billion into private cybersecurity firms in Q2 2017: the most ever in a single quarter. Six companies — Cybereason, Data4 Group, CrowdStrike, Netskope, Tanium, and Illumio — had mega $100 million-plus funding rounds in the second quarter of this year. No other quarter has had this many $100 million funding rounds before, according to CB Insights.
Malware outbreaks like the WannaCry pandemic and breaches like the one at Equifax has heightened demand for a variety of security technologies and made cybersecurity vendors a hot commodity in investment circles. The surging demand for security tools and services also has generated considerable startup activity in the security space. Gartner estimates worldwide information spending will top $86 billion this year.
Q3 also has been quite active funding-wise. [After this posting Digital Shadows announced it has raised $26 million in a Series C funding round led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from World Innovation Lab, Industry Ventures, and existing investors.]
Here, in descending order of investment size, is a sampling of some of the cybersecurity funding activity for this period.