Investments in Israel's cyber security industry exceeded $1 billion for the first time in a single year during 2018, a new report published Monday by Start-Up Nation Central has revealed, Trend reports referring to The Jerusalem Post.
The country's 450 active cybersecurity companies raised a total of $1.19 billion last year, constituting a 47% increase since 2017 and a fourth consecutive record-breaking year of investments. Since 2014, the sector has witnessed a five-fold increase in investments.
Today, only American cybersecurity companies surpass Israel's growing cyber field in terms of equity investment, with Israeli industry benefiting from approximately 20% of worldwide venture-backed cyber investments.
Non-Israeli investors continue to play a dominant role in the Israeli ecosystem, participating in some 65% of investment deals. While the majority are America-based investors, capital has also been injected by investors from France, Japan and the United Kingdom.
While fewer cybersecurity start-ups (60) were established in 2018 than in previous years (75 in 2017 and 82 in 2016), the fastest growing sub-sector was in data protection.
Reflecting growing demand for online privacy and the need for meticulous GDPR compliance, 13 new data protection start-ups were founded in 2018. The sub-sector's 65 active companies currently represent 15% of the total cyber industry, and attracted sixteen rounds of investment (14% of the industry total).