Cybersecurity Firm iboss Raises $35M From Goldman Sachs, Looks Toward IPO
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2015 round reads, in hindsight, as the opening move of Goldman Sachs' cybersecurity franchise: the bank took a $35M position in iboss while the startup declared IPO ambitions. Within three years Goldman was running point on the sector's marquee listing, when CrowdStrike hired Goldman Sachs to prepare for its own IPO — the same dual role of shareholder and underwriter.
The pattern compounded from there: Goldman led Very Good Security's $35M Series B, had already acquired bot-mitigation firm Human Security by 2020, and put $125M into Fortress Information Security in 2022. iboss itself stayed on the private track, raising $145M led by NightDragon and Francisco Partners in 2021 rather than going public.
First-order effects
- iboss gains a strategic balance sheet behind its stated IPO ambition — and Goldman Sachs gets early equity in a network-security vendor it could later advise, follow on into, or take public.
Second-order effects
- The investment signals to other security founders that Goldman offers both capital and a listing path, pulling deal flow toward the bank — a dynamic later borne out by CrowdStrike choosing Goldman as IPO counsel and Fortress taking Goldman money over rivals.
Third-order effects
- If the model holds, a single institution spans the entire security-company lifecycle — seed-stage check, growth round like Human Security's post-acquisition raise, and underwriting mandate — concentrating financing power in ways traditional VC-only syndicates cannot match.
The trend: Wall Street banks are shifting from passive advisors to principal owners across the full funding lifecycle of cybersecurity companies.