Lightspeed Venture Partners January Newsletter

Last month, Lightspeed unveiled the first ever Cyber 60 – a new report created in partnership with FORTUNE to recognize the top 60 cybersecurity startups in the market today. Get it here:

• The Fortune Cyber 60, presented by Lightspeed

This month, the Cyber 60 made it to Times Square. Thank you to our partners at NYSE for celebrating the inaugural list.

Get to know some of the winners, their origin stories, and how they got to where they are today:

Arctic Wolf is now a global leader in mitigating cyber threats for organizations of all sizes – from large enterprises to small businesses, one of a handful of companies driving the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) market. But when the company first launched in 2012, it was more of a lone wolf. Go behind-the-scenes as the cybersecurity company shares their vision and trajectory towards becoming the leader of the pack: https://lsvp.com/how-arctic-wolf-became-leader-of-the-pack-cyber-60/ 

Shlomo Kramer, Cato Networks’ CEO, co-founded the company in 2015. But Cato is far from Kramer’s first stab at cybersecurity. His experience dates back to the earliest days of the public internet, when hacking was little understood but could immediately shut down a company’s computer system out of nowhere. Explore how the cybersecurity and networking company came to be: https://lsvp.com/cato-networks-is-always-fortifying-your-security-cyber-60/.

A lightbulb moment while working for Microsoft at the age of 16 put Sanjay Beri on the path to founding Netskope, a cloud security company with a valuation of $7.5 billion. Learn about Sanjay’s journey from Toronto to Stanford and Silicon Valley. Spoiler: it did not happen overnight and came with many twists and turns. https://lsvp.com/not-exactly-this-how-sanjay-beri-hatched-netskope-cyber-60/

In 2013, Bipul Sinha appeared well on his way to a stellar career as a venture capitalist (VC). As a partner at Lightspeed, he worked on investments in several promising startups, including Nutanix. And while he enjoyed identifying promising founders and helping them build generational success stories, there was one thing missing for Sinha: the chance to build his own. In 2014, he and a group of co-founders launched Rubrik, a data security company that recently surpassed $500 million in subscription annual recurring revenue (ARR) and celebrated acquiring its 5,000th customer. Sinha acknowledges that he and his co-founders knew that Rubrik’s original product wasn’t sufficient on its own to create a category-defining company. So, how did they do it? Read on: https://lsvp.com/how-rubrik-became-a-cybersecurity-headliner-cyber-60/

When Jeff Shiner became the CEO of 1Password in 2012, one of his goals was to double the company’s size, from 20 employees to 40. Once that was achieved, he set out to double it again. Then again. And so on. By 2023, the company, which provides password management and other online security services, employed over 1,000 people. During this time, the only thing that grew faster was the need for the Toronto-based company’s products. With the largest venture financing in Canadian history and a valuation of $6.8 billion, there’s a lot to learn from Jeff Shiner. Here he shares insights into 1Password’s acute expansion and funding strategy: https://lsvp.com/how-1password-unlocked-a-new-market-cyber-60/

We’ll be back in February with more news and updates. In the meantime, check out Lightspeed Consumer team’s top 10 predictions for 2024:

1. We all win the “lottery of time” as consumer AI shifts towards utility ⏳

2. AR comes back into focus as the race for AI wearables heats up 😎 

3. AI adoption intensifies concerns around consumer data privacy 🔐 

4. AI ushers in a new standard for education 📚

5. “Crypto summer” arrives with another pop 🪙 

6. Renewable energy picks up steam 🔋 

7. Healthcare as we know it is completely transformed by AI 🩺 

8. AI usage booms for the Baby Boomer generation 🧓 

9. Early healthcare diagnosis goes mainstream 🩻 

10. A new US contender enters the fast fashion arena 🛍️

Deep-dives on all the predictions are linked here — if you're a founder building in any of these spaces, we would love to hear from you!

–Team Lightspeed