Funding has increased by a staggering 940% for UK cybersecurity start-ups since the beginning of lockdown – with £496m being raised in the first half of 2020, almost outstripping the 2019 total of £521m.
Investors have been quick to put their money towards start-ups specialising in cyber-risk management, as the pandemic forced CEOs to look beyond just financial or regulatory risk.
The findings come from a new report by global recruiter Robert Walters and data provider VacancySoft – Cybersecurity: Building Business Resilience – which claims that business spending on cybersecurity will double to £136bn this year.
According to the government’s Cyber Security Sectoral Analysis 2020 there are 1,221 firms active within the UK providing cybersecurity products and services – a 44% increase in the last two years – indicating that a new cybersecurity business is registered every week within the UK.
Of this, 90% of the sector consists of SMEs – with an associated estimated turnover of £2bn (24% of the sector’s revenues).
Darius Goodarzi, Principal – Information Security and IT Risk at Robert Walters, said this year in particular cybersecurity start-ups have risen to become ‘business heroes’, playing an important role in protecting our ‘new world’.
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