SafeBreach raises $15M to test companies’ cybersecurity from a hacker’s perspective

SafeBreach, a cybersecurity startup that simulates hacks on companies’ systems to help them identify holes, has closed a $15 million series A round from existing investors Sequoia Capital and Shlomo Kramer, with participation from new entrants Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, Hewlett Packard Pathfinder, and Maverick Ventures.

Founded in 2014, SafeBreach serves as a virtual hacker of sorts, generating “war games” to analyze the impact of attacks on a company’s systems and the efficacy of its defenses. This essentially lets any organization see how it would cope when faced with a real-life attack.

Cybersecurity is one of the hottest categories for investment. In the past couple of months alone, Bay Dynamics raised $23 million for its risk analytics platform, Post-Quantum nabbed $8 million, Darktrace secured $65 million, SecurityScorecard closed a $20 million round, and Cylance attracted $100 million for its A.I.-driven cybersecurity platform.

SafeBreach was founded out of Israel where 70 percent of its personnel, which is mostly R&D, are still based, but the company is now headquartered in Delaware, in the U.S. The company had raised around $4 million before this latest round, and its latest cash injection will be used to expand its R&D and sales and marketing efforts.

The company’s new backers, including Deutsche Telekom and Hewlett Packard, are also testament to how the broader tech industries are increasingly investing in cybersecurity smarts.

“We had many alternatives for funding but elected to go with strong financial backers with strategic value-add that will help SafeBreach aggressively grow our market leadership,” said Guy Bejerano, CEO and cofounder of SafeBreach. “We see the market shifting toward the understanding that while breaches may be inevitable, the impact doesn’t have to be.”

Major tech companies are investing heavily in the field through acquisitions, while others are addressing the anticipated future shortage in cybersecurity experts — reports suggest that the industry could be short by around 1.5 million personnel by 2020. Cisco recently announced a $10 million scholarship program to encourage people to enter the cybersecurity industry, and Facebook recently open-sourced its Capture the Flag competition platform to teach developers about cybersecurity.