Big ticket early-stage bets fuel Europe’s cybersecurity funding

CRIME POLICE CENTER FOR CYBER SECURITY

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After a near-record year for European cybersecurity VC funding, investment has maintained pace in Q1, with the focus shifting to larger early-stage deals.

In the first three months of the year, Europe attracted $1 billion in cybersecurity VC investment, according to our latest report on the sector, putting the amount broadly on track to match 2025’s full-year total—the second-highest figure in a decade. However, the cadence of dealmaking has trailed since last year, with 61 deals closing—indicating that deals are getting larger despite early-stage startups accounting for a greater share of capital, suggesting that investors are making fewer but larger bets on perceived category winners.

The growing share of capital going to early-stage startups in Europe’s cybersecurity sector aligns with a global shift. For the first time in more than three years, deal value for early-stage startups globally exceeded that of late-stage startups, reaching $2.1 billion.

In Q1, the global median for cybersecurity rounds stood at $25 million, more than double 2025’s figure and significantly above late-stage’s median of $17.5 million.

VCs’ move toward younger companies coincides with the rise of AI-native cybersecurity startups raising larger rounds, such as Israeli insider-threat platform developer Above, which raised $50 million in March.

Six of Q1’s largest European rounds in the vertical were for early-stage companies; only two were late-stage.

Tel Aviv-based Gambit Security, developer of an AI-based cyber resilience platform, raised $61 million in February from investors including Spark Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Cyberstarts. Aikido Security, a Belgium-based startup offering AI penetration testing, reached unicorn status in January with a $60 million Series B led by DST Global.

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