Delhi-based and IIT Bombay incubated cybersecurity startup Lucideus has raised US$5 million (~ Rs 36 crore) in Series A round of funding, led by Cisco Chairman Emeritus John Chambers. John has infused funding in Lucideus through his recently launched JC2 Ventures, reported Fortune India.
Out of $5 million, John Chambers has pumped in $4 million, while a handful of angel investors infused the rest of the money.
The latest funding is a result of interesting interaction between John Chambers and CEO of Lucideus, Saket Modi, wherein Chambers asked Modi to explain his business in 15 seconds, and Modi did, and Chambers was stumped.
While the ticket size isn't huge, the investment is crucial as it highlights the potential that investors like Chambers see in cybersecurity in India, and the opportunity that may exist for enterprise service and product providers like Lucideus globally.
[caption id="attachment_127020" align="aligncenter" width="699"]
John Chambers and Saket Modi [Image - Tom Upton Studio
/ Fortuneindia.com][/caption]
The startup will be use the freshly raised capital to expand its presence in the US as well as existing markets like India, and also to further strengthen its platform to provide more robust security to the startup's enterprise customers that span across banking and financial services, retail and others.
According to Saket Modi, CEO of Lucideus, the company has seen its revenues growing in triple digits year-on-year and has been cash flow positive for the last few years.
Earlier in May 2017, the startup had raised funding from a clutch of global executives like Google's Rajan Anandan, Facebook Messenger executive Anand Chandrasekaran and FreeCharge's ex-CEO Govind Rajan.
This is Cisco Chairman's second investment in India after he had invested in Chennai-based Uniphore Software Systems, a speech recognition solutions company. In May last year, Chamber had announced the launch of US$70 million fund dedicated exclusively for Indian startups.
Founded in 2012 by by Saket Modi, Vidit Baxi and Rahul Tyagi, Lucideus is a pure play Cybersecurity company, providing Cyber Security platforms to enterprise and governments across the globe. It is empanelled in CERT India, India'a nodal agency to deal with cybersecurity, as one of the certified cyber security auditors by Government of India.
Notably, Lucideus is also the cybersecurity firm behind the end-to-end cybersecurity assessment of the BHIM payments application as well as UPI (Unified Payments Interface) library that is today embedded into the mobile banking applications of almost all banks in the country that have a mobile banking facility for transfer of money.
Besides Lucideus, other cybersuecurity startup from India which has raised funding most recently is Mumbai headquartered Sequretek, which had raised US$3.7 million in a bridge round led by Unicorn India Ventures and other investors including GVFL and Sharad Sanghi, MD & CEO, Netmagic.
According to Nasscom, the Indian IT industry is set to reach a size of $350-400 billion by 2025. The country can build a cybersecurity products and services industry of $35 billion by 2025 and generate a skilled workforce of one million in the security sector.
Globally, the cybersecurity market is expected to grow from $152.71 billion in 2018 to $248.26 billion by 2023, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.2% during 2018-23, according to a new market research report by MarketsandMarkets. The major forces driving the growth in the space are strict data protection directives and rising cyberterrorism. The cybersecurity market is growing rapidly because of the rising need for cloud-based cybersecurity solutions among enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) alike.
Out of $5 million, John Chambers has pumped in $4 million, while a handful of angel investors infused the rest of the money.
The latest funding is a result of interesting interaction between John Chambers and CEO of Lucideus, Saket Modi, wherein Chambers asked Modi to explain his business in 15 seconds, and Modi did, and Chambers was stumped.
While the ticket size isn't huge, the investment is crucial as it highlights the potential that investors like Chambers see in cybersecurity in India, and the opportunity that may exist for enterprise service and product providers like Lucideus globally.
[caption id="attachment_127020" align="aligncenter" width="699"]
John Chambers and Saket Modi [Image - Tom Upton Studio/ Fortuneindia.com][/caption]
The startup will be use the freshly raised capital to expand its presence in the US as well as existing markets like India, and also to further strengthen its platform to provide more robust security to the startup's enterprise customers that span across banking and financial services, retail and others.
According to Saket Modi, CEO of Lucideus, the company has seen its revenues growing in triple digits year-on-year and has been cash flow positive for the last few years.
Earlier in May 2017, the startup had raised funding from a clutch of global executives like Google's Rajan Anandan, Facebook Messenger executive Anand Chandrasekaran and FreeCharge's ex-CEO Govind Rajan.
This is Cisco Chairman's second investment in India after he had invested in Chennai-based Uniphore Software Systems, a speech recognition solutions company. In May last year, Chamber had announced the launch of US$70 million fund dedicated exclusively for Indian startups.
Founded in 2012 by by Saket Modi, Vidit Baxi and Rahul Tyagi, Lucideus is a pure play Cybersecurity company, providing Cyber Security platforms to enterprise and governments across the globe. It is empanelled in CERT India, India'a nodal agency to deal with cybersecurity, as one of the certified cyber security auditors by Government of India.
Notably, Lucideus is also the cybersecurity firm behind the end-to-end cybersecurity assessment of the BHIM payments application as well as UPI (Unified Payments Interface) library that is today embedded into the mobile banking applications of almost all banks in the country that have a mobile banking facility for transfer of money.
Besides Lucideus, other cybersuecurity startup from India which has raised funding most recently is Mumbai headquartered Sequretek, which had raised US$3.7 million in a bridge round led by Unicorn India Ventures and other investors including GVFL and Sharad Sanghi, MD & CEO, Netmagic.
According to Nasscom, the Indian IT industry is set to reach a size of $350-400 billion by 2025. The country can build a cybersecurity products and services industry of $35 billion by 2025 and generate a skilled workforce of one million in the security sector.
Globally, the cybersecurity market is expected to grow from $152.71 billion in 2018 to $248.26 billion by 2023, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.2% during 2018-23, according to a new market research report by MarketsandMarkets. The major forces driving the growth in the space are strict data protection directives and rising cyberterrorism. The cybersecurity market is growing rapidly because of the rising need for cloud-based cybersecurity solutions among enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) alike.
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