2022 Cybersecurity Startups

Good or bad timing?

As we go to press with Security Yearbook 2023, I took a look at the 26 cybersecurity startups we added to our database of 3,238 total vendors around the globe. (Trellix and Gen Digital were also founded in 2022 but they were formed from what was left of McAfee+FireEye and Norton+Avast, not really startups.)

Keep in mind that it is hard to find startups in their founding year. There could easily be 200 that started last year but we won’t know about them until they launch their website, create a LinkedIn page and Twitter handle, or launch with funding.

A perceived economic downturn is a great time to launch a startup. If you get traction during hard times you will be positioned to scale during boom times!

Here are the 2022 startups with the most immediate momentum.

If you start from one person you tend to get large growth numbers. :-) Half the startups were in the US, pretty close to the 53% of all cybersecurity companies that are in the US.

Here is the entire list.

Fifteen of these startups took in a total of $119 million in announced seed funding. They employ 274 people.

Here are the investors that put $13.5 million into Protect AI, a good list for a seed investment round!

The last time we experienced “head winds” in the economy was 2008. How many of today’s companies were founded in 2008? Answer: 61.

Keep in mind that there are 300-400 acquisitions in cybersecurity every year. These are just the 61 who survived as independant companies. You might recognize a few of them.

Will any of the 2022 cohort make it to IPO? I would be willing to bet on it.