Cyberstarts Launches $300 Million Employee Liquidity Fund to Power the Next Stage of Cybersecurity Startup Growth
This new fund offers structured, annual secondary windows for employees to sell a portion of their vested shares without leaving their company. By providing this built-in path to liquidity, Cyberstarts will help its portfolio companies retain key talent, align incentives, and sustain a culture of long-term commitment and innovation. Cyberstarts will partner directly with its portfolio companies to determine eligibility based on scale and talent needs. HR teams at each respective company will then determine implementation for employees.
'At Cyberstarts, we have always made it our mission to nurture and motivate talent from idea through execution – and that includes finding new ways to have deeply technical cybersecurity talent stay and thrive at our portfolio companies,' said Gili Raanan, Founder of Cyberstarts. 'With this new fund, we are hoping to go even further to support our portfolio companies – creating a retention tool that rewards employees with a way to participate in their company's early success while staying focused on the long term vision.'
'In today's market, we're seeing industry-leading technology companies scale to extraordinary heights over years and years with continued drive and commitment of their original employees,' shared Yotam Segev, Co-Founder and CEO of Cyera. 'At Cyera, we're building a lasting company in a critical industry, which requires retaining and motivating the very best talent over a long time horizon. Cyberstarts has been supporting our mission from day one, and this new liquidity program supercharges our team by rewarding them with reliable and predictable liquidity.'
'To build a fundamentally new category at a company like Island, we require deep expertise, long-term commitment, and a shared sense of purpose from our team,' said Michael Fey, Co-Founder and CEO of Island. 'Especially given today's extended IPO timeline, secondary equity transactions are becoming an essential component of the employee experience at startups that choose to remain private and independent. This new commitment from Cyberstarts is a tremendous asset as founders work to deliver an exceptional workplace.'
Cyberstarts is uniquely positioned to launch this new Employee Liquidity Fund given its close and long-standing partnerships with its portfolio companies. Each eligible Cyberstarts-backed company will receive its own dedicated allocation within the fund, allowing for flexible, founder-aligned implementation. The initiative reflects Cyberstarts' commitment to rethinking venture capital with a talent first mindset.
With the close of this new fund, Cyberstarts now has raised over $1 billion in capital commitments across six funds. Its investment portfolio continues to grow, with nearly 30 investments to date. Cyberstarts is well known for investing in the Seed rounds of category leaders, including Wiz, Fireblocks, Island, and Cyera, among many others.
About Cyberstarts
Since its founding in 2018, Cyberstarts has operated with a singular goal: to support exceptional founders from idea to execution. As one of the only venture firms built specifically for cybersecurity entrepreneurs, Cyberstarts invests before there's a product, a team, or even a single line of code—backing founders who have identified a challenge and have the grit to solve it. With deep domain expertise and hands-on partnership, Cyberstarts works side-by-side with founders to refine go-to-market strategy, build out early teams, and tap into a trusted network of global CISOs. Cyberstarts has raised more than $1 billion across 6 funds. Its portfolio accounts for nearly 50% of the global market cap of private cybersecurity companies. As the investment partner of choice for the most ambitious cybersecurity founders, Cyberstarts is proud to be counted as a seed investor in today's most notable solutions, including Wiz, Fireblocks, Cyera, Island, and Transmit Security, among others.
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