Israeli cybersecurity company creation platform Team8 has announced that it has raised $85 million and formed an international coalition incorporating Walmart, Airbus, Softbank, Moody’s, Dimension Data, Munich Re, Scotiabank and Barclays. Team8’s existing investors, including M-12, Microsoft’s venture-capital arm, Cisco Investments, Nokia, Bessemer Venture Partners, Temasek and Innovation Endeavors have also joined the coalition.
Each of the new coalition members has invested between $5 million and $10 million in the new fund and will hold a stake in companies founded in proportion to their investment. They will take an active role in setting up new companies and will also invest directly in them.
By bringing together leaders in finance, technology, retail, aerospace, risk and insurance, Team8 says that the coalition aims to build technology companies to create secure and agile environments that empower enterprises to realize the true benefits of digital transformation and leverage data to create real business impact. The coalition formed with this unprecedented approach after respective member organizations concluded that the formidable threat posed by cybercrime inhibits enterprises’ ability to maximize digital transformation opportunities due to inherent risks. Rather than simply viewing cybersecurity as a necessity, the Coalition will unlock its value through rethinking enterprise infrastructure, enabling new growth opportunities through infrastructure for networks, the Cloud, data and computing.
The coalition sees cyber as a catalyst for growth instead of as a defense mechanism, strives to build infrastructure that is resilient by design rather than requiring additional layers of security, and regards data science as a prime enabler of business growth if utmost security is built-in to the infrastructure
The investment funds will build a series of companies that accelerate secure digital transformation through Team8’s company-building model. The committed $85 million will be invested at seed-level into each of the solutions, resulting in independently operating companies with shared ownership by the investors.
Team8 CEO Nadav Zafrir told "Globes." "Our vision is to locate the problems existing in big data, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity and solve them using our unique model."
He added, “The commitment from our new partners illustrates the significance of our work to galvanize digital transformation across all industries. The synergy and insight from leaders in retail, aerospace, insurance, financial services and technology combined with our unrivalled cyber and data expertise at Team8 will enable companies to adopt new data-driven methods of working, ensuring they can retain their competitive advantage and thrive, in spite of cyber threats.”
“Rogue states, hackers, terrorists and criminals are intent on wreaking physical, financial and societal havoc and catastrophic damage on governments, corporations and individuals,” said Eric Schmidt, Founding Partner of Innovation Endeavors, a lead investor in the Team8 Coalition. “As data continues to proliferate and our technical capabilities expand, cyber attacks and wars will increase in number and intensity. Team8 has gathered the brightest minds from Israel and around the world to drive its think tank, industry coalition and innovation foundry. We, at Innovation Endeavors, are proud to partner with Team8 as it expands beyond cyber to solve imminent threats around data sharing, collaboration and machine learning.”
"Walmart's readiness to experiment with and adopt emerging technologies such as blockchain, VR and robotics is pivotal to continually improve our customer shopping experience, stay ahead of the curve and drive market share,” said Jerry Geisler, Walmart’s Chief Information Security Officer. “Our digital transformation is underpinned by more connectivity than ever before. We’re joining Team8’s coalition because of their cybersecurity expertise, proven ability to integrate their viewpoints into leading technology solutions and unique access to insights from other sectors.”
Last week, Team8 announced that former NSA Director, Admiral Mike Rogers was joining its Board of Advisors. Team 8 also reported the acquisition of its first portfolio company Sygnia by Temasek, the global investment company headquartered in Singapore, for $250 million.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 23, 2018
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