Israeli cybersecurity company Skybox Security announced today that it has raised $150 million in a financing round led by CVC Capital Partners’ Growth Fund, which invested $100 million, and with participation from Pantheon, which invested $50 million.
Skybox was founded in Israel in 2002 by CEO Gidi Cohen, Moshe Meiseles, and Eran Reshef. Today Skybox is headquartered in Silicon Valley and has its development center in Herzliya Pituach. The company has 260 employees including 120 in Herzliya.
The company has raised $288 million to date, including the latest financing round and a previous $96 million financing round in February 2016, and previous investors include Benchmark Capital, Carmel Ventures, Valley Fund, and Mitsubishi Fund.
Cohen told "Globes,"As well as injecting new capital into the company, some of the existing investors in skybox, including employees, have sold their holdings."
The company did not disclose how much was sold by shareholders but Cohen said, "The buying of shares was a signficiant part of this financing round."
Cohen added, "Within 12 months, we'll be in a position to hold an IPO in terms of our finiancial profile but at this stage that is not part of our focus."
Skybox builds cybersecurity management software that gives customers comprehensive visibility of their unique attack surface. The software uses analytics to prioritize an organization’s risk exposures and recommend informed action to best address those exposures. These capabilities extend across highly complex networks, including those in physical, virtual, cloud and operational technology (OT) environments. The company’s broad platform, the Skybox Security Suite, enables organizations to reduce security risks that attackers can find and exploit, such as device misconfigurations and policy violations, as well as exposed and unpatched vulnerabilities.
Cohen said, “Enterprises, governments... everyone is either embarking on or going through massive digital transformation, and this means new challenges for security because the attack surface of these organizations is growing more complex. We’ve been consistently evolving our technology to meet those challenges. With this investment, we’ll accelerate that innovation, focusing on some of the most critical areas, such as security management for the cloud and the OT networks that control critical infrastructure.”
“Skybox’s track record is impressive and there is clear demand for their solutions,” said Jason Glass, senior managing director of CVC Growth Partners. “It is a true leader in cybersecurity management, helping organizations better protect themselves and become more efficient. Gidi Cohen, Skybox’s co-founder and CEO, is a respected innovator in security management and analytics, and we look forward to working with him and the wider executive team as we expand Skybox’s offering and global reach.”
In the first half of 2017, for example, Skybox had a 62% increase in sales and 59% increase in product transactions compared to the same period last year. Skybox has a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46% and positive cash flow (2014 ¬- 2016).
This round of funding will enable investment in sales and marketing, customer care and R&D as well as potential acquisitions.
Skybox customers are Global 5000 companies and government agencies, in more than 50 countries and nearly every industry. The company’s products are used by six of the top 10 global banks, 10 global telecommunications firms, five of the world’s largest consumer goods manufacturers and 10 of the largest energy providers globally.
Jason Glass and John Clark, managing partner of CVC Growth Partners, will join Skybox’s board of directors.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 25, 2017
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