In the eponymous Labyrinth in the 1980 movie—starring David Bowie as The Goblin King in his most bemusing turn—the paths shift around, statues appear and vanish, and there’s a swirling M.C. Escher staircase.
It’s a world where the rules constantly change, keeping a very young Jennifer Connelly off balance as she works her way through a maze filled with Jim Henson’s scaly and scruffy puppets. I may just be thinking about Labyrinth because it’s about to be Halloween, but that’s what cybersecurity feels like for me—a phantom maze, with high stakes and moving walls, where you risk falling into a trap door.
That’s part of what makes Fortune and Lightspeed Venture Partners’ second annual Cyber 60 an interesting heat check right now—because cybersecurity is getting increasingly labyrinthine. As we spend more and more of our lives digitally, there’s more cyberattack surface area. And, with the rise of AI, there will be more opportunities for entrepreneurs in the space—both as AI provides solutions for companies, and simultaneously creates more attackers than ever (some of whom I imagine look like goblins).
The Cyber 60 includes many growth stage names you’re probably expecting, including Wiz, Vanta, Cribl, Arctic Wolf, Chainguard, and Cato Networks. Some earlier stage standouts who I’ve personally been tracking who’ve made the list include: Dazz, ThetaLake, CalypsoAI, and Radiant Security.
For the Cyber 60, Lightspeed, in partnership with Wakefield Research, gathered data from 200 CISOs at companies with $500 million in revenue or more. Here’s what they learned:
About seven out of ten of CISOs surveyed say they’re bumping up their cybersecurity budgets this year. Vendor consolidation—the process by which companies limit the number of suppliers they work with—is in full swing: 50% of CISOs said vendor consolidation will be top of mind for them over the next twelve months. On average, these CISOs said they're currently using seven cybersecurity solutions.
Translation: More money will be going to fewer companies. In an already viscerally competitive landscape, the winners will keep winning even more. (Yes, invoking the Power Law here is only fair.)
But just because every single company on this list may not eventually be IPO-grade, it doesn’t mean there aren’t other metrics of success in a space as hot (and needed) as cybersecurity. 2024 has been an exit-light year for VCs, but cyber has been a bright spot. (Wiz, for example, bought Gem Security this summer, while Cyber 60 honorable mention Cyera recently bought Trail Security.)
Because if there’s one thing that’s clear from Labyrinth—and I assure you, there’s only so much—it’s that when you’re navigating a moving maze, you need all the help you can get.
This month's cartoon...Here's your October cartoon, by Ian Foley.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
Twitter: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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