UPDATED 18:15 EDT / MARCH 11 2025

SECURITY

Security funding: Cybereason raises $120M as Chainguard reportedly eyes $350M round

Cybersecurity startups Cybereason Inc. and Chainguard Inc. are topping up their coffers to support business growth initiatives.

Cybereason, which develops a breach detection and remediation platform, on Monday announced that it has closed a $120 million funding round. Chainguard, in turn, is reportedly in talks with Kleiner Perkins about a $350 million investment. The startup provides hardened versions of popular open-source tools.

SoftBank Corp., SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Liberty Strategic Capital led Cybereason’s raise. The company said the round is open to contributions from additional investors. The deal follows a $100 million round in 2023 that also saw the participation of SoftBank. 

Cybereason will use the capital to support the growth of its flagship XDR, or extended detection and response, platform. The software uses artificial intelligence to detect cyberattacks across employee devices, cloud instances and other technology assets. Cybereason says it processes 9.8 petabytes of cybersecurity data for customers every week.

The company announced the funding round alongside two other major business updates.

First, Cybereason has appointed Manish Narula as its new chief executive. Narula was previously the company’s chief financial officer. He is succeeding former CEO Eric Gan, who recently filed a lawsuit over Cybereason’s fundraising strategy. The complaint reportedly alleges that SoftBank Vision Fund and Liberty Financial breached their fiduciary duties.

Cybereason has also scrapped a planned merger with Trustwave Holdings Inc., a Chicago-based provider of managed cybersecurity services. The software maker has instead “decided to pursue expansion of our strategic relationship with Trustwave.” Alongside its flagship EDR platform, Cybereason provides a set of managed security services.

The company announced its latest $120 million raise hours before word emerged that another cybersecurity startup is raising funding. Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that Kleiner Perkins is in talks to lead a $350 million round for Chainguard. The fundraising discussions come less than a year after the startup closed its most recent $140 million Series C investment. 

Chainguard operates a software marketplace that hosts hardened versions of popular open-source tools. Before adding a tool to the marketplace, the company removes any unnecessary code it may contain to reduce its attack surface. From there, it bundles the software with a custom operating system called Wolfi that makes it easier to detect malware.

The company updates the tools in its marketplace every day. According to Chainguard, that arrangement ensures customers gain quick access to patches if researchers discover a vulnerability in one of the tools. The company’s marketplace hosts more than 700 open-source projects including databases, programming languages and analytics tools.

Chainguard received a $1.1 billion valuation following its most recent capital raise in July. According to Bloomberg, the new round the company is raising will more than triple that number to $3.5 billion. 

Image: Unsplash

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