Softbank puts another $132m into Cybereason

Japan’s Softbank has ploughed a further US$100 million (A$132 million) into a US start-up that uses artificial intelligence and data science to find and combat cyber security incidents.

The telco giant led an earlier US$59 million venture round in Cybereason in late 2015, which led to a joint venture between the two firms offering a security platform in the Japanese market.

That service has been in-market now for about a year, and in that time Softbank has seen fit to raise its stakes in the Boston-based Cybereason significantly.

Cybereason has now raised US$189 million in venture funding across four rounds. Its other investors are CRV, Spark Capital and Lockheed Martin.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the latest injection values Cybereason at about US$1 billion.

“This new funding allows us to increase our growth through new distribution channels and to develop new technologies,” CEO and co-founder Lior Div said in a statement.

“Our strengthened partnership with Softbank, which has a formidable sales force and enterprise customer base in Japan and a global reach, will also enable us to further expand our presence in the cybersecurity market.”

Div said in a blog post the company now had 300 employees and hundreds of customers worldwide.

Both Div and the company’s CTO are former members of Unit 8200, an offensive cyber security arm of the Israel Defense Forces.

According to the FT, Cybereason uses machine learning to try to replicate methods the company’s executives used in the military when hunting cyber attackers.