Cylance, a cybersecurity startup known for taking advantage of both machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to combat online attacks, recently announced the securing of $120 million in its series E financing round. This exercise marks one of many funding rounds that have been taking part in recent times, especially in the AI-startup space. Blackstone Tactical Opportunities led the Series E round, which also included other unidentified investors.
According to Cylance’s announcement, the company intends to utilize the funds in expanding not only its global reach but also its product range. Some of the previous financing endeavors have raked in $177 million including the $100 million raised in the Series D round. Cylance also holds another $120 million in the bank and said that it intends to boost its product range and global expansion activities with the Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Europe being its key areas of focus.
Currently, Cylance boasts a maximum of 4,000 clients and announced revenues amounting to $130 million, particularly for the 2018 fiscal year. This record represents a year-on-year increment of 90%.
The announcement by Cylance coincided with that of its rival company, CrowdStrike, which said that it had raised $200 million in its Series E financing round. The successful exercise drew in new investors including IVP, Accel, and General Atlantic among other previous financiers such as CapitalG and March Capital. The raised amount propelled CrowdStrike’s total funding to almost $500 million coupled with a valuation of $3 billion. Furthermore, the company plans to utilize its financing to grow its technology and operations development
Stuart McClure and George Kurtz are the founders of Cylance and CrowdStrike respectively. Aside from being both avid entrepreneurs, they are also best known for selling an Internet security company to McAfee back in 2004 for a staggering $86 million. Currently, both individuals are considered rivals, particularly in the EPP marketspace. What’s more, both Cylance and CrowdStrike were both featured in this year’s Gartner EPP Magic Quadrant as visionaries.
Cylance serves as an endpoint protection platform that is developed to prevent ransomware, malware among other types of sophisticated threats through artificial intelligence (AI). Its selection of algorithm-related security protocols fundamentally scrutinize networks for any flaws and shuts them down in case any are spotted.
Although the global cybersecurity industry is anticipated to be largely understaffed in the upcoming years, it gives way to artificial intelligence and automation to fill the existing gaps. This partly serves as one of the reasons behind the considerable investments in the field whereby CrowdStrike and Cylance operate.
According to McClure, Cylance has demonstrated that artificial intelligence (AI) can protect against cybersecurity issues that were considered difficult to avoid. He added that the company’s products continually learn and grow over time thanks to the most cutting-edge application of artificial intelligence, primarily in endpoint security.
As such, the company is able to help its customers to attain a state of long-lasting prevention. George Kurtz also said that each industry today is worried about security, which is the reason behind the popularity and huge investment in endpoint protection platforms.
