Our Investment in Lumu, a Cybersecurity Company

It's often said in the cybersecurity space that there are two types of organizations: those that have been hacked and those that don't yet know that they've been hacked. This adage points to the unfortunate ubiquity of cybercrime, which is proliferating due to our increasing connectivity and the growing sophistication of hackers. Last year, the average cost of a data breach was $3.86 million, requiring an average of 280 days to identify and contain the break.    

As network compromises become more of the norm than the exception, it's critical for companies to understand when they've been breached and to know how to respond. I've been a cofounder or early exec at three cybersecurity companies over the last 20 years and I've seen the need for new ways to approach network compromise. This is why I'm pleased to announce our investment in Lumu. BIP Ventures (via Panoramic fund) and SoftBank Group Corp's SB Opportunity Fund are co-leading the $7.5 million investment. Other cybersecurity leaders are also participating in the round including Internet Security Systems' former CEO Tom Noonan and Palo Alto Networks' former CEO Lane Bess.    

Lumu's focus is on enabling organizations to illuminate potential security blind spots, as well as identify confirmed instances of breaches. Applying principles of Continuous Compromise Assessment, Lumu delivers a self-learning solution that collects disparate metadata from across the network and then applies AI to correlate threat intelligence and isolate points of compromise. Simply put, Lumu helps companies accelerate compromise detection, gain real-time visibility across their infrastructure, and shorten the breach detection gap from months to minutes — something it is doing better than other cybersecurity companies.    

Lumu further distinguishes itself by making its offering accessible to companies of all sizes, from large enterprises to SMBs. Organizations can start off with a free account as well as choose between cloud- or agent-based platforms. Since launching Lumu at the RSA Conference in February 2020, more than 1,300 companies across a range of industries are using Lumu's solution.    

Lumu's CEO and Founder, Ricardo Villadiego previously founded Easy Solutions which was acquired by Cyxtera. He has been in the cybersecurity industry for a couple of decades including at IBM and Internet Security Systems.    

This is our first announced investment as the Panoramic fund and holds true to our thesis of taking a "wider view" to investing including geography and overlooked founders. Lumu is based here in the Southeast in Miami. This is another example of the talent that exists in regions outside of the traditional tech hubs and among minority founders.

I'm thrilled that the SB Opportunity Fund is co-leading this round. The SB Opportunity Fund is a $100 million venture fund dedicated to supporting and building a community of outstanding Black, Latinx and Native American founders. I believe that Lumu will help businesses change how they manage cybersecurity by putting them in control of the impact of cybercrime in their organizations. We are thrilled to back Ricardo and Lumu on this journey.      

‍Lumu Press Release Announcement