Cybersecurity startup Cyfirma raises Series A round from Z3Partners

Goldman Sachs-backed predictive cyberthreat visibility and intelligence analytics platform provider Cyfirma has raised an undisclosed amount in a Series A funding round from Z3Partners, a Mumbai-based early-growth private equity fund.

With the current round, the Singapore and Tokyo headquartered company has raised $8 million so far. It also counts Zodius Capital as one of its shareholding investors.

The company’s cloud-based artificial intelligence and machine learning-enabled cyber intelligence analytics platform helps organisations identify potential threats at the planning stage of cyberattacks and predict future attacks.

The fresh capital will be used to add functionalities that will enhance its predictive capabilities as well as build adjacent features that will complete the cybersecurity ecosystem at the company’s cyber-intelligence analytics platform, a statement said on Friday.

Cyfirma also plans to expand into markets across Asia, including India, and the United States.

Launched by Illinois-based data analytics company Antuit in 2017, Cyfirma has offices in Singapore, Japan and India. It separated from its parent organisation in October last year.

“Our unique way of looking at cyber threat analytics, gathering intelligence across deep and dark web as well as surface web to unravel motivations of threat actors and stop cyberattacks at its track has been a winning formula for many of our clients,” Ritesh Kumar, founder and CEO of Cyfirma, said.

According to Gartner, the global information security market is expected to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 9% to reach $188.8 billion in 2023.

“Cyfirma’s offering is well-timed with the rapidly-increasing demand for quality threat intelligence to guide digital transformation and drive business results,” Gautam Patel, managing partner at Z3Partners, said.

Z3Partners operates with its $100 million early-growth private equity fund, with a focus on Indian businesses operating in the technology, digital, fintech, BFSI and analytics sectors.

Patel is a founding member at both Z3Partners and his former employer Zodius Capital.

Zodius and Z3Partners have both separately invested in online furniture retailer Pepperfry and grocery site BigBasket. Z3Partner’s other bets include food delivery platform FreshMenu, online travel agency MakeMyTrip, genomics-driven research and diagnostics company Medgenome, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) financing platform Of Business and payments solutions provider TechProcess, according to its official website.