Good day. Despite the venture-capital sector having its best quarter on record, the cybersecurity sector looked to be a laggard, at least on paper. In a new report, cybersecurity-focused venture firm DataTribe noted a drop in both deal count and size, while valuations rose. Median deal size of Series A funding rounds into cybersecurity startups fell roughly 17% to $10 million in the first quarter of this year compared with last year, according to U.S. data from provider PitchBook Data Inc. prepared for DataTribe. The number of cyber deals fell roughly 21% to 33 in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same period of 2020. However, DataTribe said the number of startups approaching it for investment was up 80% compared with the same period a year earlier. “We believe it’s a sign that deal volumes in the coming quarter will increase since the number of companies seeking investment is a forward-looking indicator of early stage cyber investments,” DataTribe wrote in the report. The firm offered reasons for its outlook in the cyber sector going forward: High-profile cyberattacks have ramped up cybersecurity urgency; the Biden administration has made several recent appointments of cybersecurity experts to key posts. In addition, China’s rise as a potential cybersecurity threat is only ratcheting up the need for digital security.

DataTribe, a global cyber foundry that invests in and co-builds next-generation cybersecurity and data science companies, announced today $1.7M seed investment in SightGain. SightGain won the 2020 DataTribe Challenge in December which made them eligible for a seed investment of up to $2M. SightGain is the only cybersecurity risk management platform that evaluates security readiness by testing how well both production systems and personnel detect and prevent actual malicious attacks.