SentinelOne, an AI endpoint security firm that went public last June, announced the launch of a $100 million fund S Venture to invest in the next generation of enterprise cybersecurity startups.
The launch of S Ventures comes at an interesting time for the cyber security market. While startups in the sector have long weathered the current economic storm better than most, layoffs at cyber startups are now becoming common, and new data shows recent numbers are down across funding and M&A.
SentinelOne co-founder and CEO Tomer Weingarten believes this fluctuating market represents an opportunity for his company, which is eager to diversify its focus away from mergers and acquisitions and into venture funding. SentinelOne recently completed a $617 million acquisition of threat detection platform Attivo Networks, which followed a $155 million takeover of server log monitoring tool provider Scalyr.
“For us, M&A is a very capital-intensive tool,” Weingarten told TechCrunch “On the other hand, the venture allows us to nurture an ecosystem around SentinelOne and in some cases bring better results for our customers. It’s an effective tool for us to drive any kind of impact we want without excessive use of capital.”
S Ventures will invest across all stages of the startup lifecycle with a focus on security and data companies that bring new ideas to its SentinelOne Singularity XDR marketplace, a platform that integrates security applications and tools across vendors into a single platform without the need to code or know-how. How to script
“We’re trying to focus on ideas, technologies and people that we have a very unique vantage point in the enterprise infrastructure, because we can look at the enterprise infrastructure.” One can have a positive impact, be mission-driven and positively disruptive.”
Ace Ventures has already invested in several startups, including API email security platform Armorblox and continuous cyber asset management and control platform Noetic Cyber. These startups join an already bumper list of S Ventures portfolio companies including Torq, a no-code security automation platform that accelerates complex threat response workflows, and Laminar, a platform that provides full data observability across the public cloud to reduce the attack surface and detect real provides – Time data leak.
“When we work with these companies, we advise and we have some of the best operators in the business, so it’s about helping them scale,” Weingarten added. “It’s about helping them not make the same mistakes we’ve made over the years.”
The fund will be managed by Rob Salvagno, SentinelOne’s head of corporate development, David Kellenberger in the US and Irene Reznikov, the company’s director of corporate development and investments in Israel.
