A few recent moves by Boston-area cybersecurity firms illustrate the various ways the sector’s members (and related companies) are trying to build their businesses and bolster measures to counter cyber threats:
—Raising more cash: On Tuesday, Zerto said it tacked $20 million onto a $50 million growth financing round announced in January. The new investment was led by CRV.
The Boston startup has raised $130 million total from investors to date. It’s one of several privately held security-related companies in the area that have raised at least $100 million, along with Carbon Black, Datto, Digital Guardian, and Veracode.
Zerto provides data protection, recovery, and migration services for cloud and virtualized data centers.
—Teaming up: Confer formed a partnership with K2 Intelligence, a New York-based firm that provides cybersecurity investigations and defense services. The pair will offer a new managed security service that uses Southborough, MA-based Confer’s technology that aims to automatically prevent, detect, and respond to attacks. K2 Intelligence will install lightweight sensors on endpoint devices—think smartphones, laptops, and servers—that have remote connections to customers’ networks.
The partnership is an example of how cybersecurity firms are looking for new ways to beef up their products and services, as customers increasingly seek unified security solutions.
—Protecting intellectual property: Mustbin said it was granted an important patent for its data storage and protection technology. The four-year-old Boston startup offers a mobile app for securing sensitive photos, videos, passwords, and other documents on devices and in the cloud; it also enables users to securely share such information via encrypted messages.
The patent covers the way Mustbin encrypts and stores data, and how users access their data, the company said. Mustbin has raised $6 million from investors to date.
—Fostering community: Komand, the new Cambridge, MA, startup from Threat Stack co-founder Jen Andre, launched an online community for cybersecurity professionals to “share tribal knowledge” and learn about security techniques and tools. The free website, dubbed “Komand Komunity,” will include curated articles written by industry experts, tutorials on significant security topics, and social media components.
Komand’s online community is the latest example of cybersecurity firms pushing industry collaboration. Another recent effort is the C³ Alliance. Led by CyberArk Software (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CYBR]]), the alliance is a nationwide group of cybersecurity, enterprise software, and other service providers who will integrate into their products more security measures for so-called “privileged accounts.”
