New York, September 24, 2020,
Option3Ventures (O3V), a leading cybersecurity investment specialist firm, announced the launch of its O3V Cyber Special Situations portfolio with the addition of three new portfolio companies over the past few months. The portfolio is being launched at a time when COVID-19 has presented a perfect storm in cybersecurity, and our society is more dependent than ever on a secure cyber ecosystem. Astute investors identify that this is also a huge opportunity, one that surmounts economic cycles and individual company performance.
Manish Thakur, Managing Partner of Option3Ventures said: “All three companies in our Special Situations portfolio play to our larger investment strategy of focusing on those frontiers of cybersecurity where existing solutions cannot meet today’s challenges. All three investments were also made after COVID-19 disrupted the markets. Despite the uncertainty of the times, investors intuitively understand that this new age of remote-work and play make us even more vulnerable to cyber threats.”
The companies in the portfolio have built unique patented solutions to address cybersecurity problems facing enterprises and government. The first, Veracity Industrial Networks (https://veracity.io/) provides Industrial Software Defined Network (SDN)-based technology for operational networks used in automotive, manufacturing and process automation. The second, Onclave Networks (https://onclavenetworks.com/), provides a Zero Trust Platform for securing Industrial Internet-of-Things including 5G wireless. The third, Dark Cubed, (https://darkcubed.com) takes a bottom up approach to solving cybersecurity challenges by delivering enterprise grade results quickly and inexpensively to small and medium size companies. All these companies will use the proceeds to enhance their sales and marketing activities. Option3Ventures partners will join all three boards of directors.
“This portfolio comes at an interesting time in our nation’s history. COVID-19 has changed the way we live, raising the importance of communications, its reliability and security,” said Alan Wade, a member of O3V‘s Technology Board and former Chief Information Officer of the CIA. “The companies in this portfolio have the ability to make a meaningful contribution providing a more secure future.”
Dick Fuld, Senior Strategic Advisor to O3V, and former CEO of Lehman Brothers, added, “Cybersecurity represents a challenge to society, and an opportunity for investors. I believe this portfolio addresses some of those challenges, allowing investors to participate in the growth of the industry.”
The launch of the portfolio comes ahead of the launch of Option3Ventures’ first dedicated fund, which will begin making investments in 2021.
About Option3Ventures
Option3Ventures is a leading cybersecurity investment specialist made up of professionals drawn from both the national security community and the investment industry. It focuses on those companies at the very frontiers the of the cybersecurity sector, offering solutions to problems that existing technologies cannot address. Over the past five years, O3V has built a track record of venture investing in a select group of categories leaders and is now raising its first dedicated cyber venture capital fund, Option 3 Cyber Investments. O3V is based in New York and the Washington DC area, and its Board of Advisors range from former Chief Information Officers at such organizations as the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Defense to the former CIO of Merrill Lynch and former CEO of Lehman Brothers.
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