Meet the $100 million cybersecurity startups

A dozen cybersecurity startups have each raised $100 million or more in funding since 2014, according to Dow Jones VentureSource — a database that reports on companies globally who receive venture capital and private equity funding.

Hundreds of billions will be spent on securing PCs, mobile and IoT devices, corporate networks, and the cloud over the next five years.

The worldwide cybersecurity market is expected to grow from $75 billion in 2015 to $170 billion by 2020. Cybercrime costs are projected to reach $2 trillion by 2019, quadruple the estimated cost of breaches in 2015 – which should push the spending forecasts even higher.

Which cybersecurity startups are best positioned to capitalize on the opportunity? If the answer is measured in terms of the best funded companies, it would be the 12 which VentureSource reports have each nabbed $100 million or more from VCs and corporate investors since 2014:

• CloudFlare, San Francisco, Website optimization and security
• Crowdstrike, Irvine, Calif., Data breach detection and prevention
• Forescout, Campbelll, Calif., Network and Internet of Things (IoT) security
• Illumio, Sunnyvale, Calif., Data center and cloud security
• Lookout, San Francisco, Mobile security and risk management
• Netskope, Los Altos, Calif., Cloud application security
• Okta, San Francisco, Identity access and management
• Palantir, Palo Alto, Calif., Data security and security analytics
• Pindrop Security, Atlanta, Call center and IVR anti-fraud
• Tanium, Emeryville, Calif., Endpoint security and management
• Tenable, Columbia, Md., Network visibility, threat detection and prevention
• Zscaler, San Jose, Calif., Cloud Security Platform

Collectively, these 12 companies have taken in more than $4.5 billion in funding to date (all funding, some of which pre-dates 2014).

There were only a few cybersecurity IPOs in 2015, and there hasn’t been one so far in 2016. It has been widely reported in the media that Dell’s SecureWorks will IPO shortly.

A cool IPO market means these hyper-funded companies need to put their heads down and focus on grabbing their share of security spending in 2016. The end game for investors is a liquidity event – namely an IPO.