John Chambers-backed cybersecurity startup Lucideus raises $7 mn

Cybersecurity firm Lucideus Technologies has raised $7 million in a funding round led by MS&AD Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Japanese insurance company MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings. The stage of investment was not specified.

The round also saw the participation of venture debt firm WTI (Western Technology Investment), the company said in a statement. With the latest capital infusion, the company claims to have doubled its valuation in 10 months.

Lucedius, which operates out of Delhi and Palo Alto, California, last raised capital in October 2018 when former Cisco executive chairman John Chambers’ venture capital firm JC2 Ventures parked $5 million in the company.  

The capital raised in the current round will be used to ramp up the company’s operations in the US, double engineering and sales teams over the next three months and scale up the company’s platform, dubbed  SAFE (security assessment framework for enterprises (SAFE, the statement said. SAFE helps businesses measure and mitigate cyber-risks in real-time.

“Last year, we had a triple digit revenue growth with a net promoter score (NPS) of 86. We intend to continue growing at this pace next year. With this intent, we feel this new round of investment has a strategic overlap for our platform to reach out to a larger audience across the world, while continuing to strengthen our leadership across Asia,” Lucideus co-founder and CEO Saket Modi said.

Modi founded the company in 2012 with Vidit Baxi and Rahul Tyagi. The company was initially incubated at IIT Bombay and moved operations to Delhi in 2014.

Read: This Indian cybersecurity startup wants to repeat its winning strategy abroad

“Lucideus’ SAFE solution has the potential to fundamentally change how businesses and insurers understand, value and cover their cyber risks. Lucideus has enabled Fortune 500 companies to secure their digital journey and their solution can support the largest enterprises as well as SMBs,” Jon Soberg, managing partner at MS&AD Ventures said.

 Earlier this year, Lucideus partnered with Bombay Stock Exchange for cybersecurity solutions.