UK cyber security Darktrace seeks £283million new investment from Silicon Valley

UK cyber security upstart Darktrace, a world leader in Enterprise immune System Technology and Threat visualisation, is in talks with Silicon Valley investors to raise its value to £283million US$ 400million. The funding would mean the company’s valuation has quadrupled in less than a year. Darktrace was seeking to top up its cash reserve in anticipation of a downturn in technology venture capital funding. Technology unicorns like Four Square the location app and Jawbone, the Fitness Gadget maker have had to slash their valuations to raise cash.

Despite several cyber security firms in the horizon, Darktrace, the company formed by ex-GCHQ staff and University of Maths academics, is growing rapidly, as it makes advanced algorithms and its ability to reveal previously unknown security threats and anomalous behaviours in corporate networks and defending against emerging threats irrespective of their type or origin.  Darktrace’s software platform that allows for the detection and investigation of most subtle cyber threats from within the network, is used by both small businesses and large corporations. Its majority shareholder is Invoke Capital, a technology investment firm set up by entrepreneur Mike Richard Lynch, OBE, who is also co-founder of Autonomy Corporation, which specialises in signal processing and pattern recognition and unstructured information. In 2000 he was named by the Time magazine in their 25 most influential technology people in Europe. The Financial Times described him as “the doyen of European software” and the Sunday Times, suggesting that Lynch is the nearest thing Britain has to Bill Gates.