Lucideus raises $7 million in funding led by MS&AD Ventures, to hire 100 people in 3 months

Indian cyber security firm Lucideus on Tuesday said it has raised USD 7 million in funding (over ₹50 crore) led by MS&AD Ventures, the venture capital arm of Japanese insurance company MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings.

The funding round also saw venture debt coming in from Western Technology Investment (WTI), Lucideus co-founder and CEO Saket Modi told PTI. He added that the company has seen its valuation double in the last 10 months, which is now nearing USD 100 million.

In October last year, Lucideus had announced raising USD 5 million (over ₹36 crore) in funding led by Cisco Chairman Emeritus John Chambers.

"The fresh funds will be used to ramp up the company's operations in the US, double engineering and sales teams in the next three months and scale up the company's platform - Security Assessment Framework for Enterprises (SAFE)," he said.

SAFE helps businesses measure and mitigate cyber risks in real-time. Its customers include Fortune 500 companies and governments around the world. The company, which has around 200 employees, is also looking at hiring about 100 people in the next three months in India, the US and Singapore.

"Last year, we had a triple digit revenue growth with a net promoter score (NPS) of 86, we intend to continue growing at this pace next year. With this intent, we feel this new round of investment has a strategic overlap for our platform to reach out to a larger audience across the world, while continuing to strengthen our leadership across Asia," Modi said.

Founded in 2012 in India, the company had shifted its headquarters to Palo Alto earlier this year.

The global cyber security market size was valued at USD 137.63 billion in 2017 and is projected to reach USD 248.26 billion by 2023, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.2 per cent during the forecast period, according to Markets&Markets.