[Funding alert] Cybersecurity company Cyberbit raises $70M from Charlesbank Capital Partners

Cyberbit Ltd, a subsidiary of Elbit Systems Ltd and a global provider of cyber range training and simulation platforms, on Tuesday announced that it has received an investment of $70 million from Charlesbank Technology Opportunities Fund, a fund managed by Charlesbank Capital Partners. 

The deal is a combination of a primary investment and a secondary purchase from Elbit Systems Ltd.  Existing investor Claridge Israel also participated in the round.  

Rakesh Kharwal, MD-India, Cyberbit, said,

"Along with the global expansion, this funding will also be leveraged to accelerate sales and marketing in India, to increase our existing reach within the financial and enterprise sector, and particularly to penetrate the higher education sector in India, where we’ve seen great success globally, by helping colleges and universities launch hands-on cybersecurity programmes based on cyber-range simulation.”

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Founded in 2015, the company’s platform Cyberbit Range claims that it addresses one of the most acute cybersecurity problems: preparing the human element for attacks. The product delivers a hyper-realistic experience that replicates a real-world cyberattack by immersing trainees in a virtual security operations centre (SOC), where they use commercial security tools to respond to live, simulated attacks, the firm added. 

As a result, it dramatically increases SOC team performance, improves teamwork, and improves evaluation, hiring, and certification processes, as per the company. 

The platform delivers over 100,000 training sessions annually across five continents. Customers include Fortune 500 companies, MSSPs, system integrators, academies, and governments. Cyberbit is headquartered in Israel with offices in the US, Europe, and Asia. 

Adi Dar, CEO of Cyberbit, added,

“The investment from Charlesbank will allow us to solidify our position as a best-of-breed product and allow us to accelerate our global expansion.”

Cyberbit also said that it is seeing a spike in the demand for its cloud-based offering during COVID-19 to support remote training needs.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, when most organisations were forced to cancel training for their security teams due to travel restrictions and lockdowns, Cyberbit’s cloud customers were able to seamlessly transition their security teams to remote training and maintain their skill levels, the firm stated.