Cydarm raises $3 million to enhance its platform and expand globally

Cydarm, an Australian cyber security business, has completed its second equity round, with several investors, contributing a total of over $3m.

With the rising frequency and severity of cyber attacks, increasing regulatory pressure and a global skills shortage, organisations are facing unprecedented levels of cyber risk. Cydarm’s platform addresses the unique challenges faced by security operations teams on the front lines of cyber defence.

The Cydarm platform enables fast and consistent incident response, coordinating people and processes across distributed teams with different levels of experience and trust, and automating time consuming tasks. This secure platform is used by customers in Federal and State government, Defence, financial services, higher education, and managed security services. In 2020, the platform was used on a Defence cyber training trial as a command-and-control system.

Cydarm’s Co-founders Ben Waters and Dr Vaughan Shanks are enthusiastic about growth opportunities following the equity round.

“This investment allows us to advance the vision for the platform including further integration and automation features. Of course, to do this we need to recruit more staff. We’re looking for passionate people with an interest in cyber either based in Melbourne or willing to work remotely nationwide,” Dr Shanks said.

The equity round was led by InterValley Ventures, with Right Click Capital doubling down on their original investment in Cydarm in 2018, and Five V Capital joining as a new investor. The round also includes several individual cyber security executives all excited by deep tech and a belief in Cydarm’s mission to build cyber resilience.

The lead investor, Intervalley Ventures, has an impressive technology portfolio including space-tech startup Myriota and encryption business QuintessenceLabs. InterValley Ventures specifically looks for opportunities in high quality, globally scalable and early-stage Australian tech companies.

Simon Wright, General Partner, Intervalley Ventures, saw the potential in Cydarm’s platform to diagnose cyber threats quicker.

“We saw Cydarm as clearly innovating in the internationally important area of Cyber security. As such Cydarm represented a perfect addition to our portfolio where are wanting to focus on disruptive business models that address problems of global importance. We also saw it as a notable example of Australian innovation,” Mr Wright said.

In addition to recruiting staff and enhancing the platform, Cydarm is also exploring opportunities to expand globally.