MSSP Funding: ReliaQuest Raises Over $300 Million -

ReliaQuest, an MSSP that developed its own cybersecurity software platform, has secured over $300 million in a growth financing round led by investment firm KKR, according to a prepared statement. The company previously received $30 million in funding from growth equity investment firm FTV Capital.

ReliaQuest will use the new funding to expand internationally, the company said. It also will explore ways to bolster its GreyMatter software platform.

GreyMatter is a SaaS security platform designed to help organizations eliminate false-positive alerts, ReliaQuest indicated. The platform identifies false positives and collects relevant security data to help organizations accelerate incident investigations.

In addition, GreyMatter offers pre-built playbooks across common security events and use-cases, ReliaQuest noted. GreyMatter also provides machine learning-based threat hunting and automated attack simulations to help organizations validate their security controls and systems, identify security gaps and analyze security risks.

GreyMatter can be used in combination with various security information and event management (SIEM), endpoint detection and response (EDR) and other security technologies, ReliaQuest said. Furthermore, ReliaQuest deploys new GreyMatter integrations monthly.

ReliaQuest intends to add 100 employees worldwide this year, the company stated. It has increased its revenue more than 450 percent over the past three years and could capitalize on the rising demand for managed security services globally.

Global MSSP market revenues are projected to increase 15 percent year over year in 2020, market intelligence firm IDC has predicted. These revenues also could reach $27.9 billion by the end of the year.

MSSPs: Venture Capital and Private Equity Funding Trends

Funding within and across the MSSP market has been steady. Key deals have included:

July 2020: Haven Cyber Technologies raised €5.7 million (approximately $6.4 million) from investment firm C5 Capital.
January 2020: Abacode, a Top 200 MSSP, raised $4.85 million in Series A funding to expand its sales, security operations center (SOC) & project execution teams. Ballast Point Ventures leads the round.
July 2019: Digital Hands, an MSSP & security operations center-as-a-service (SOCaaS) provider that supports MSPs, raised $15 million in private equity.
June 2019: Expel raised $40 million to expand managed treat monitoring, investigation, Response and hunting.
April 2019: Deepwatch, an MSSP spin-out from GuidePoint Security, raised $23 million to accelerate cloud-based SecOps, machine learning & analytics R&D.
February 2019: Anitian, a Top 200 MSSP that evolved from a VAR business, raised $11 million in Series A funding. CEO Andrew Plato bets on Sherlock cloud compliance platform.