Latest news with #SafeSecurity
Mint
31-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
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.
Economic Times
31-07-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
Cybersecurity startup Safe Security raises $70 million from Avataar Ventures, others
ETtech Safe Security cofounder Saket Modi Cybersecurity intelligence startup Safe Security has raised $70 million in a funding round led by Avataar Ventures, with participation from Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital, NextEquity Partners and Prosperity7 Ventures. Existing investors, including Eight Roads, John Chambers, and Sorenson Capital, also participated in the round. The Palo Alto-based company said the fresh capital will be used to invest in research and development initiatives, strengthen its presence in the cyber-risk management space, and develop agentic AI-based reasoning models as it works toward building cyberAGI, artificial general intelligence designed to manage cybersecurity autonomously. Founded in 2012 by Saket Modi, Viditkumar Baxi and Rahul Tyagi, Safe Security helps large enterprises measure and manage their cyber risks in real-time using artificial intelligence (AI). The company's software continuously assesses an organisation's internal systems and third-party partners, quantifies how exposed an organisation is to potential cyber threats, simulates the impact of possible breaches, and recommends where companies should focus their security efforts.'We are the layer of intelligence on top of pretty much the entire cyber security stack of a company, which translates tactical findings into business risk and then enables action on that,' Modi, who is the chief executive officer, told added that the company, which was incubated at IIT Bombay, offers over 100 application programming interfaces (APIs) that integrate with commonly used enterprise security Security was bootstrapped for its first four years. Modi, a computer science engineer, and his team were also involved in the security assessment of Bhim, the digital payments app developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The company recently launched a new product in the continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) space, which it claims is the first fully autonomous solution in the category. It said that unlike existing tools that rely on static risk scores, Safe's version uses dozens of AI agents to scan an organisation's attack surface in real-time and simulate how adversaries might exploit different vulnerabilities. Safe Security currently has around 200 employees, with its research and development team of 100 based in India. It counts companies such as Google, Netflix, Fidelity, Victoria's Secret, T-Mobile, and Chevron among its 2023, Safe Security raised $50 million in a round led by Sorenson Capital. With the latest fundraise, the company has now raised a total of $170 million.'Most cybersecurity sub-sectors we've evaluated are either overcrowded or limited to tactical, widget-like solutions. But cybersecurity today is a boardroom and CEO-level priority, and that's not changing anytime soon,' said Nishant Rao, founding partner at Avataar Ventures. 'What makes Safe stand out is its positioning — not as another detection tool, but as a strategic intelligence layer across the entire cybersecurity stack.' Elevate your knowledge and leadership skills at a cost cheaper than your daily tea. Zomato delivered, but did the other listed unicorns? Tata Motors' INR38k crore Iveco buy: Factors that can make investors nervous Trump tariffs: End of road or a new journey ending Russia reliance? As rates slide, who will grab the savings pie? MFs, insurers? Is it time for Tim Cook to bid bye to Apple? Regulators promote exchanges; can they stifle one? Watch IEX Stock Radar: Down over 20% from highs! Varun Beverages stock showing signs of trend reversal – time to buy? History tells us 'Hold' is equal to wealth creation: 11 large- and mid-cap stocks from different sectors with upside potential of up to 37% In some cases parentage equals 'management with ability': 5 mid-caps from different sectors, which tick the right box Multibagger or IBC - Part 17: Margins are slim. Promoters are all in. Is this small cap the ultimate contrarian bet?
Time of India
31-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Cybersecurity startup Safe Security raises $70 million from Avataar Ventures, others
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Cybersecurity intelligence startup Safe Security has raised $70 million in a funding round led by Avataar Ventures , with participation from Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital, NextEquity Partners and Prosperity7 investors, including Eight Roads, John Chambers, and Sorenson Capital, also participated in the Palo Alto-based company said the fresh capital will be used to invest in research and development initiatives, strengthen its presence in the cyber-risk management space, and develop agentic AI-based reasoning models as it works toward building cyberAGI, artificial general intelligence designed to manage cybersecurity in 2012 by Saket Modi, Viditkumar Baxi and Rahul Tyagi, Safe Security helps large enterprises measure and manage their cyber risks in real-time using artificial intelligence (AI).The company's software continuously assesses an organisation's internal systems and third-party partners, quantifies how exposed an organisation is to potential cyber threats, simulates the impact of possible breaches, and recommends where companies should focus their security efforts.'We are the layer of intelligence on top of pretty much the entire cyber security stack of a company, which translates tactical findings into business risk and then enables action on that,' Modi, who is the chief executive officer, told added that the company, which was incubated at IIT Bombay, offers over 100 application programming interfaces (APIs) that integrate with commonly used enterprise security Security was bootstrapped for its first four years. Modi, a computer science engineer, and his team were also involved in the security assessment of Bhim, the digital payments app developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).The company recently launched a new product in the continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) space, which it claims is the first fully autonomous solution in the category. It said that unlike existing tools that rely on static risk scores, Safe's version uses dozens of AI agents to scan an organisation's attack surface in real-time and simulate how adversaries might exploit different Security currently has around 200 employees, with its research and development team of 100 based in India. It counts companies such as Google, Netflix, Fidelity, Victoria's Secret, T-Mobile, and Chevron among its 2023, Safe Security raised $50 million in a round led by Sorenson Capital. With the latest fundraise, the company has now raised a total of $170 million.'Most cybersecurity sub-sectors we've evaluated are either overcrowded or limited to tactical, widget-like solutions. But cybersecurity today is a boardroom and CEO-level priority, and that's not changing anytime soon,' said Nishant Rao, founding partner at Avataar Ventures. 'What makes Safe stand out is its positioning — not as another detection tool, but as a strategic intelligence layer across the entire cybersecurity stack.'
