SYN Ventures launches debut fund and reveals three investments

SYN Ventures formally launched its debut fund and revealed the firm led Sevco Security’s $15 Million Series A round as the first investment in the fund. SYN also led the Seed round in SynSaber and participated in the record-setting Series A round in Transmit Security.

SYN is founded by Jay Leek, Managing Partner and Co-founder of ClearSky Security and former Blackstone Chief Information Security Officer (CISO); and Patrick Heim, Partner and CISO for ClearSky Security and former Head of Security at Dropbox and Chief Trust Officer for Salesforce.com.

Jay and Patrick are also joined by security veterans Art Coviello as SYN’s Investment Committee Chairman and former Chairman & CEO of RSA Security, in addition to Dan Burn, former CEO of Optiv, and John Watters, President and COO of FireEye, as Venture Partners.

SYN invests in transformational early-stage technology companies that can help disrupt the security industry. The team at SYN Ventures combines decades of operational security experience with investing acumen and a trusted network of CISOs to help entrepreneurs accelerate the growth or their companies to better protect against the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape.

“Cyber has become an existential challenge and a derivative of every major trend in technology,” said Jay Leek, Managing Partner at SYN Ventures. “This drives a vast array of investment opportunities where we can leverage our network and experience to unfairly accelerate growth for our portfolio companies.”

“As a founding team member of Carbon Black, which was Jay’s first investment at Blackstone, I’ve seen first-hand the value this investment team delivers in helping build transformative companies,” said J.J. Guy, Founder and CEO of Sevco Security. “To come full circle and be SYN Ventures’ first investment is an honor that will be critical to repeating this success by leveraging their expertise and enormous network of prominent CISOs to disrupt the asset management market.”

SYN’s Managing Partners have a proven investment track record of creating long-term success:

• Jay and Patrick have combined to lead early funding rounds in more than 40 companies across the security sector including BigID, CloudKnox, CyberGRX, AppOmni, HUMAN Security (formally WhiteOps), FireEye, Cylance, Carbon Black and Phantom to name a few.
• The firm also helps entrepreneurs better build and grow their businesses over the long-term through powerful, accessible insights from the world’s most reputable cybersecurity leaders and practitioners.

“Security is never ‘done’. Security teams are reliant on cutting-edge vendors to help them out-innovate the attacker,” said Patrick Heim, Managing Partner at SYN Ventures. “Tension among business constraints, growing threats, increased regulation, and the rapid evolution of technology creates security gaps that in turn create opportunities for entrepreneurs. It is these opportunities that SYN is targeting. For the next generation of disruptive security companies, nothing substitutes proven operating expertise and networks to achieve clarity of mission and to rise above the industry noise.”