31-07-2025
In rare big bet, Indian VC backs local cybersecurity firm's $70 mn fundraise
Palo Alto, US-based cybersecurity platform Safe Security has raised $70 million in a Series C round led by B2B SaaS-focused investor Avataar Venture Partners. According to Tracxn data, this is one of the largest cybersecurity deals to be led by an Indian venture capital firm.
'With the new funds, we're focused on only one thing: product, product and product," company co-founder and chief executive Saket Modi told Mint in an interview.
The round, which saw other new and existing investors pin their money and faith in the company, consisted purely of primary investments and no secondaries–in other words, the money went directly to the startup and no existing shareholder sold any stake.
New investors in this round included Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital, NextEquity Partners, and Prosperity7 Ventures, while existing investors Eight Roads, John Chambers and Sorenson Capital reiterated their faith in the company with more money.
With this fundraise, Safe Security's overall funding has risen to $170 million. While the company's valuation is currently unknown, Modi said that it had 'more than doubled" from their last round, which was a $50-million Series B in 2023. Even back then, the company did not disclose its valuation.
Incubated out of IIT Bombay in 2012, Safe Security began with a cyber risk quantification module, which still brings in about two-thirds of its revenue. The rest comes from a new module called autonomous third-party risk management, which it launched in mid-2023.
'In the next one year, I expect our first and second modules to be almost equal," said Modi, adding that a third module is being launched.
The third module, according to Modi, would be an agentic artificial intelligence continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) system, which constantly evaluates, assesses and mitigates risks within an organisation's digital environment.
Modi said that Safe Security will focus on this new module for the next year. 'We want to stagger it out, but whatever we build, we want to be leading in the market," Modi said.
Currently, 90% of the company's revenues come from the US, the UK, and Australia. 'These geographies will continue to be where we get more customers from and we will be investing in go-to-market in these places," he said.
Safe Security wants to go public but after a few years of strong growth. 'We should be in a position to be publicly traded in three to four years and when we're nearing that, we can take a strategic call on whether we want to list in India or in New York," Modi said.
The company started as a services company named Lucideus but rebranded in 2018 to become product-focused, becoming Safe Security. It caters to Fortune 2,000 companies and generally signs deals that average $175,000. Some of its clients include T-Mobile, SAP, Dell, Chipotle, Canva, Chevron, HP, Google, Netflix, and British Telecom.
Small India market
Cybersecurity is a complex market, with companies targeting different parts of the value chain. Some that have managed to carve out moats include CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks–which recently acquired CyberArk for $20 billion–FortiNet and cloud security startup Whiz, which was recently acquired by Google for $32 billion.
The global cybersecurity market is expected to grow from $234 billion this year to $424 billion by 2030, according to market data firm Mordor Intelligence. Comparatively, the India numbers are small and expected growth is also tepid–from $3 billion in 2025 to $3.4 billion by next year, according to technology research and advisory firm Gartner.
'Indian cybersecurity companies face challenges such as significant price sensitivity among buyers and disqualification due to missing functionality or misaligned pricing expectations," said Apeksha Kaushik, principal analyst at Gartner. 'Clients also cite underutilized existing investments and the added complexity of new solutions as key internal barriers, making it essential for vendors to demonstrate clear value."
Jaspreet Singh, Milind Borate, and Ramani Kothandaraman managed to create the only cybersecurity unicorn from India, US-based cloud protection services startup Druva, which was last valued at $2 billion in 2021 after a $147 million Series H round that year.
Low investor interest
Even the amount of VC and PE deals happening in the sector are few. Between 2020 and 2025, only 29 deals were signed, totalling a puny $195 million, according to data from Venture Intelligence. In the past five years alone, the largest cybersecurity deal also involved Safe Security, which raised $33 million of its $50 million from JC2 Ventures in 2023. The round was led by Sorenson Capital.
Even so, foreign companies like Proofpoint, which provides cybersecurity for workspaces like Office 365 and social engineering intrusions, see India as a growing market. The company sees three trends playing out here: the emergence of generative AI, creation of laws like the Digital Personal Data Protection Act and cybersecurity frameworks mandated by regulators like the RBI and finally, enterprise customers looking for more preventive platforms.
As a result, the company set up an R&D and threat intelligence centre in Pune this year, hired 250 people and plans to hire more. 'We see India not as an R&D and GCC geography, but as a full-fledged market," said Proofpoint CEO Sumit Dhawan.
Currently, most of the company's business comes from the US, which accounts for 72% of its business, with the remaining 28% coming from Western Europe and Australia.
Proofpoint is currently in conversation with 50 Indian enterprises. Dhawan said the company has already signed up two of the country's largest BPOs, but declined to name them. 'In my assessment, for the India business to be at par with western Europe, it'll take between 18-24 months," said Dhawan.
