Hello NightDragon Community,
What a year it’s been! NightDragon has come a long way in 2021. We raised $1.15B in capital, grew to 44+ employees and advisors, forged 40+ strategic partnerships, announced growth rounds with 9 major cybersecurity, safety, security and privacy companies, and built out the broader NightDragon community through events and thought leadership across the industry.
We were proud to reach these milestones at a time when it is more important than ever to advise and invest in the next generation of leaders and technologies. Ransomware and geopolitically fueled attacks in 2021 have crossed into our day-to-day lives and threatened the future of our economy, our critical infrastructure and indeed our way of life. We are proud to play a role in helping address this challenge and are committed to continuing our efforts in 2022 and beyond.
We want to thank each and every one of you for being part of our NightDragon community. We look forward to continuing to engage with you and solve our world’s most pressing challenges together.
From all of us at NightDragon, have a Happy (and healthy) New Year!
The NightDragon Team
$1.15 BILLION IN CAPITAL RAISED
In March, NightDragon Acquisition Corp. announced raised $345M through the IPO of a special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC) focused on the cybersecurity, safety, security and privacy industry.
In July, we announced the close of NightDragon Growth I, a $750M+ fund to invest in and advise late-stage and growth companies in the cybersecurity, safety, security and privacy industry. We ultimately raised $767M for this fund, which we have already put to good work against some of what we believe are the most impactful up-and-coming cybersecurity companies today.
INVESTMENTS MADE IN 9 COMPANIES
We were excited to announce multiple new investments and advisory relationships over the course of 2021:
- Led $145M round in iboss, the leader in cloud delivered network security, alongside Francisco Partners
- Participated in $85M funding round in Premise Data to accelerate development of the first AI-powered market intelligence platform in use by the world’s leading organizations
- Led $58M round in vArmour, the leading provider of Application Relationship Management, alongside AllegisCyber Capital
- Led $45M in strategic growth financing in SafeGuard Cyber, a leading SaaS-based platform dedicated to managing the entire lifecycle of Digital Risk Protection, with participation from Cisco Investments and AllegisCyber Capital
- Led a $55 million Series C round in HawkEye 360, the leading global commercial provider of space-based radio frequency (RF) data and analytics. We also participated in HawkEye’s $145M Series D financing later in the year, led by Insight Partners and Seraphim Space Investment Trust.
- Led a $100M financing round in Interos alongside Kleiner Perkins and Venrock to protect supply chains from disruption. As part of this, we led the formation of a strategic investment syndicate which included Coupa, Accenture and others.
- Led a $50M financing round in LogDNA, the leading observability data platform, alongside Emergence and Initialized Capital and added further value through the alignment of key strategic financing partners.
GREW TO 44+ EMPLOYEES AND ADVISORS
NightDragon welcomed five new members to our core NightDragon team over the past year, including Principal John Cordo, Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Alliances Amy De Salvatore, Head of Government Services Katherine Gronberg, Head of Marketing and Communications Sarah Kuranda and Vice President of Finance Tony Chow.
We also launched our NightDragon Advisory Council, which now counts 31+ of the world’s top CISOs, CIOs, go-to-market leaders and more. Stay tuned – we plan to continue growing this group with industry leaders to support our investment and portfolio company growth.
LAUNCHED ND PROGRAMS AND 40+ STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
We also launched the NightDragon Network: a series of events, master agreements, portfolio days, partnerships and community efforts that significantly expand the capabilities of our portfolio companies and help them tap into their full potential. These programs and partnerships include:
ND Talent & Diversity: Employees are the heart and soul of every organization, and we know our companies need strong and diverse talent to be successful. With that in mind, we launched the following initiatives throughout the year to help our companies attract, hire and retain top and diverse talent:
- Internal talent database of our collective professional networks to serve as the go-to talent pool for NightDragon companies
- Job posting board to advertise all open listed roles at our portfolio companies
- Forged master agreements and partnerships with leading talent organizations such as human intelligence and talent verification company CrossChq, and leading cybersecurity recruiting firms Pinpoint Search Group and Hitch Partners
- Forged master agreements and partnerships with leading diversity and talent development organizations, including the Athena Alliance, Cyber Future Foundation and Cybersecurity, and Gatebreakers Foundation
ND Government Services: We launched NDGS in June to help bring innovative technologies to government operators to enable mission success, as well as to support the expansion of our portfolio companies into critical government markets.
- NightDragon now provides deep expertise and advisory support to our portfolio companies on navigating complex public sector markets.
- We further expanded NDGS in August with the launch of a State and Local Advisor Consortium to help bring cutting edge technologies to the States and localities in the U.S.
ND Go-to-Market: With 25+ years of operating experience, NightDragon is in a unique position to help our portfolio companies scale their go-to-market efforts through partner access and leverage. We launched ND Go-to-Market to help deliver this value directly to our portfolio companies, through the following initiatives:
- Formed master service agreement partnerships to help our companies enter new markets, build and deliver new offerings and scale through indirect leverage. We announced partnerships and alliances with:
- Carahsoft to help accelerate portfolio company sales in the federal, state, local and education markets, as well as provide them with preferred terms.
- Macnica Networks, Japan’s largest distribution company, to extend the reach of its portfolio companies into the Japanese market.
- Ingram Micro to optimize portfolio businesses for channel sales engagement and accelerate go-to-market growth strategies and business execution in North America.
- Exclusive Networks to drive go-to-market success and scale for portfolio companies in the European market, including guiding their channel and distribution strategies in the region and supporting them with preferred benefits.
- Optiv to provide access to an unmatched ecosystem of people, products, partners and programs and offer a fast-track to market for portfolio company products
- Launched NightDragon Portfolio Days and made strategic investor and go-to-market syndicate introductions to increase reach and exposure for our companies. Key partners and relationships this year include: Accenture, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PwC, Capgemini, Booz Allen Hamilton, AT&T, NTT, Kudelski Security, Wipro, CACI, Equinix, Jacobs, IBM, Marsh McClennan, Merlin Cyber, Capgemini, Intel, SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce, Snowflake, ServiceNow, Oracle, Coupa, Equifax, Mandiant, HPE, Cisco, etc.
We’ve already seen these efforts pay off with new portfolio partnerships formed, expanded offerings, broader reach and more scalable go-to-market models for our companies. It’s only up from here!
HELD 25+ EVENTS
NDN Community Events: At NightDragon we know our companies are stronger when they stand together. We launched a series of internal NightDragon Network events to bring together our portfolio companies and have discussions on how to grow their businesses around key functional areas, including sales, marketing, diversity and more.
NightVision Events: In an effort to facilitate important discussions within the cyber community, we launched our NightVision event series, which includes open fireside chats with some of our industry’s most interesting and influential individuals. Guests included former U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, former White House CIO Theresa Payton, Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia, former hacker Alissa Knight, CISA Director Jen Easterly and Crowdstrike co-founder and now Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator and founder of the Alperovitch Institute Dmitri Alperovitch.
Industry Events: We also hosted industry events, including an exclusive CISO thought leadership dinner on the importance of leading through cybersecurity crisis and welcoming Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas and other government leadership to Silicon Valley for a workshop with top technology innovators to discuss the advancement of public-private partnership efforts.
REACHED 7.4B+ WITH OUR THOUGHT LEADERSHIP THROUGH MEDIA
- Politico – Biden’s cyber leaders go to Silicon Valley for more help fighting hackers
- CyberScoop – National cyber resilience requires closer integration of public and private efforts
- Wall Street Journal – Cyber Private Eyes Go After Hackers, Without Counterattacking
- TechCrunch – Cybersecurity VC funding surges to a record $11.5B in 2021
- The Record – Dave DeWalt wants to build more cybersecurity unicorns
- PitchBook – Former McAfee CEO ups the cybersecurity ante with $750M venture fund
- Business Insider – This CEO saw the ongoing wave of vicious supply-chain attacks coming in 2005, and she just raised $100 million from top investors to help fight them off
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