The Periodic Table Of Cybersecurity

The 120companies, VCs, corporate investors, and acquirers defining the cybersecurity industry.

Cybersecurity companies have been helping businesses defend against an increasing number of threats using increasingly powerful techniques. In 2014, cybersecurity startups took in $2.5B dollars in funding across 224 investments.

We put together a periodic table of cybersecurity to spotlight the top industry startups, industry categories, exits, and investors.

The table is meant so serve as a compact view of the entire cybersecurity landscape. The 120 companies and investors listed were chosen using CB Insights data and analytics around momentum, financial health, and investor quality.

Navigating the periodic table of cybersecurity

The top part of the table lists top cybersecurity startups while the bottom two rows list prominent investors and recently exited companies.

We broke cybersecurity startups into several subcategories:

• Specialized corporate information protection: Companies like Lookout and Illumio offer specialized protection focused on certain types of threats or aimed at safeguarding certain types of devices, e.g. network “endpoints,” such as PCs, smartphones, and tablets.
• Corporate full-platform protection: Companies like Veracode and AlienVault offer cybersecurity platforms intended to meet all corporate security needs at once. These companies often target small- and medium-sized enterprises.
• Personal protection: Companies like Psafe Technologia and Wickr offer consumers products to help them protect their devices and information.
• Fraud protection: Companies like FeedZai and EyeVerify protect against identity theft and fraud.
• Cloud protection: Companies like Ciphercloud and Elastica are offering cybersecurity solutions specifically focused on secure access to cloud-based applications from anywhere. This is becoming increasingly important with the use of cloud-housed services and applications (Salesforce and Microsoft Office 365, for example).