Cybersecurity startup Huntress raises $60M Series C round

Despite the economic headwinds, at least one major cybersecurity startup is still preparing to go public.

Driving the news: Huntress, a popular endpoint security provider among small to medium-sized businesses, has raised a $60 million funding round led by Sapphire Ventures, the company announced Tuesday.

• Existing investors Forgepoint Capital and JMI Equity also participated in the new Series C round.
• Casber Wang, a partner at Sapphire Ventures, will join Huntress' board of directors.

The big picture: Huntress started with a focus on targeting customers who have 1,000 or fewer employees, but in recent years, the startup has been eyeing companies with double the headcount and adding to its product offerings to meet changing demands.

• Huntress has around 4,000 partners and 100,000 customers.

Between the lines: The new funds will be used to further expand Huntress internationally and build new products for securing organizations' credentials and logins, Huntress CEO Kyle Hanslovan told Axios.

• The company also raised a $40 million debt round in September to fund acquisitions and those new product buildouts, and it acquired security awareness startup Curricula in July.

The intrigue: Hanslovan said he's eyeing the summer of 2025 for a possible IPO, noting that while the company could be ready sooner, the macro environment might not be stable enough before then.

• "I've just seen way too many of these consolidation plays — they strip out the good support, the product gets stagnant, and it just becomes essentially a cash cow for private equity," Hanslovan said.
• "That was always the North Star: We should be independent if we want to be Huntress," he added.

Yes, but: Only one cybersecurity company went public in 2022, and this year isn't looking to be too much better considering inflation and fears of a debt-ceiling crisis.

• Instead, many cyber startups have been laying off staff, eyeing an acquisition or turning to private equity.
• "Cyber is probably the hardest sector to invest in for a growth investor," Sapphire Ventures' Wang told Axios. "There's not a lot of middle-of-the-road outcomes."

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Editor’s note: This story was corrected to show Huntress has around 4,000 partners and 100,000 customers (not more than 3,600 customers).