Data Security Platform Cyberhaven Bags $100 Million To Enter The Unicorn Club

As AI becomes more sophisticated, so do the threats it enables. Companies now face an ever-expanding risk landscape, including data breaches, insider threats, and AI-powered cyberattacks. With sensitive business data at stake, organizations must strike a balance between leveraging AI for efficiency and safeguarding their digital assets.

The recent flood of AI-generated Studio Ghibli-style images on social media highlights a pressing concern: who is safeguarding original creations and digital assets? In an era where AI can replicate and manipulate content instantly, cybersecurity and ethical AI use have never been more crucial.

To ensure that creators retain ownership and attribution of their work, this company is safeguarding the flow of data in the digital economy.

The team of Cyberhaven emphasizes on “a world where builders and innovators own what they make and get credit for it.”

$100 Million Power Move

In a significant move that underscores its leading position in the AI-powered data security landscape, the company has recently secured a substantial Series D funding round. This funding round, amounting to $100 million, was spearheaded by the StepStone Group, a prominent investment firm listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. This has valued the company at $1 billion.

The funding round also witnessed participation from new investors, including the global asset management firm Schroders and the venture capital firm Industry Ventures. This significant influx of capital is set to play a pivotal role in propelling the company’s already rapid growth trajectory. Moreover, it is expected to solidify the company’s position as a dominant force and a trailblazer in the realm of AI-driven data protection.

The company’s cutting-edge data tracing and risk detection techniques, powered by proprietary data lineage and foundational AI technologies, allow organizations to accurately detect and mitigate critical risks to their most valuable data.

“We are building the data security platform to tackle the most difficult challenges facing enterprise security teams with a fundamentally new approach,” said Howard Ting, CEO of Cyberhaven.

From FBI’s iPhone Dilemma to Cyberhaven’s Vision

Founded in 2016 by five highly accomplished PhD holders Cristian Zamfir, Radu Banabic, Vitaly Chipounov, George Candea  and Volodymyr Kuznetsov, the company was conceptualised from a remarkable event that happened that year. 

When the FBI announced their inability to hack an iPhone, these five gentlemen realized that the IT industry was finally on track to make hacking so difficult and costly that both casual and professional cybercriminals would be forced to find other means.

Hence Cyberhaven was born and in the last decade, their efficient team has developed a software that completely removes some of the most critical security vulnerabilities in systems used daily.

Now the company has Big Techs like Apple, Google and others use their software as part of their toolchain to make their system harder to crack.

In one of the blog posts, the co-founder Volodymyr Kuznetsov shared that after launching their product in 2019, one of their first paying customers Motorola said, “Staying ahead of the competition means guarding against insider threats. Cyberhaven’s Data Behavior Analytics (DaBA) quickly provided new capabilities for unprecedented visibility across our business to quickly identify data leakage in less than a few days.”

Guarding Secrets in the Age of AI

Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, offer increased productivity for employees across various roles, but also present a new risk to the security of confidential company information, according to the Cyberhaven team.

The current CEO of Cyberhaven, Howard Ting, has identified two primary challenges in Gen AI security. The first challenge involves preventing users from disclosing sensitive data to public LLMs like ChatGPT. 

The second challenge centers around managing access to internal data that AI-powered copilots such as Microsoft Copilot or Glean have indexed. 

Cyberhaven, leveraging its expertise in monitoring data in motion, has already addressed the first challenge. Furthermore, the company is developing tools to control AI-generated responses based on indexed unstructured data, aiming to tackle the second challenge.

Previously, the company has successfully secured $88 million in Series C funding to develop new products and enhance AI-based detection.

Cyberhaven has been facing stiff competition from various companies, including Broadcom, Trellix, Digital Guardian, Forcepoint, Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, and other emerging data security startups.

With this latest $100 million investment, Cyberhaven intends to expand its platform through mergers and acquisitions and organic innovation, expand its market reach through strategic go-to-market investments, and continue its mission of protecting the world’s most sensitive data.