A regulatory submission indicates that Ballistic Ventures, a venture capital firm dedicated to supporting and nurturing cybersecurity startups, is in the process of raising up to $300 million for its latest fund.
More than a year after initiating its initial fund of the same amount in May 2022, the San Francisco-based venture capital entity lodged paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday to secure $300 million for its subsequent fund.
Upon reaching out to Michelle Kincaid, a spokesperson for Ballistic, for a statement regarding the registration, she opted not to provide any comments.
Ballistic Ventures was co-founded by Ted Schlein, the general partner of Kleiner Perkins, alongside Barmak Meftah, Jake Seid, and Roger Thornton as the other three public partners, and Mandiant creator Kevin Mandia as its corporate partner. Derek Smith acts as a corporate advisor for the venture capital firm, while Agnes So holds the position of the company’s finance and operations director.
As per the details available on the company’s official site, Ballistic has backed around a hundred companies thus far, with over 90 cybersecurity enterprises being established, managed, and supported. The firm has made investments in AuthMind, Oligo, and Nudge Security among others. Moreover, the company recently enlisted Kiersten Todt, a former chief of staff at the US cybersecurity agency CISA, and former U.S. National Cyber Director Chris Inglis as consultants.
The expenditure on security this year has notably decreased compared to the previous year’s peak levels.
In 2023, the funding for security has experienced a significant decline from the previous years’ all-time highs. According to data from PitchBook shared with TechCrunch, venture capital injections for cybersecurity startups globally dropped by over 14% to \(2.4 billion in the third quarter of 2023 from \)2.8 billion in the corresponding period last year.
Furthermore, the number of deals concluded in the latest quarter reduced from 248 to 198.
Despite this, instances of attacks and virtual crimes have surged in frequency with the expansion of the global digital economy. Investors remain optimistic about the growth potential of security enterprises and investments, particularly in cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence applications.
Image Credits: Data from PitchBook
