Cyera is finalizing a round of at least $300 million led by Evolution Equity Partners at a $12 billion valuation, according to four people with knowledge of the deal. The data security company has surpassed $150 million in annual recurring revenue, putting the new round at roughly 80 times ARR — a multiple higher than investors assign to most fast-growing AI startups. The deal would bring Cyera's total capital raised to at least $2 billion since its 2021 founding.
The round arrives only five months after Cyera closed a $400 million Series F at a $9 billion valuation led by Blackstone, with participation from Accel, Coatue, Lightspeed, Redpoint, Sapphire, Sequoia, and Cyberstarts. A jump from $9 billion to $12 billion in under half a year is steep even by 2026 AI-security standards, and it lands while the company is still spending more than it earns.
Sources told reporters Cyera is burning cash faster than it generates revenue, with much of the spend directed at sales headcount. PitchBook data shows the company has added 500 jobs so far this year. A Cyera spokesperson disputed the reported figures, saying "the numbers cited are factually and significantly inaccurate," without specifying which numbers. Evolution Equity Partners did not respond to a request for comment.
Key facts
- 01Evolution Equity Partners is leading a round of at least $300M at a $12B valuation, per four people familiar with the deal.
- 02Cyera has surpassed $150M in ARR, putting the new round at roughly 80x ARR — a multiple above most fast-growing AI startups.
- 03The round comes five months after a $400M Series F at $9B led by Blackstone, bringing total capital raised to at least $2B.
- 04Cyera has added 500 jobs so far this year, according to PitchBook, with sales hiring driving operating losses.
- 05The company says its customers include one-fifth of the Fortune 500, and revenue more than tripled in 2025.
The pitch to investors centers on the AI threat surface. Cyera sells a data security posture management platform that maps where sensitive enterprise data lives across cloud environments and flags exposure — a problem that has gotten sharper as enterprises feed more proprietary data into AI systems and as attackers use AI to accelerate reconnaissance and exfiltration. The company's narrative to investors is that enterprises are turning to its platform to safeguard data from attackers weaponizing AI.
That narrative is showing up in growth numbers. When Cyera announced its Series F, it said its customer base included one-fifth of the Fortune 500 and that revenue had more than tripled in 2025. Crossing $150 million ARR puts Cyera in a small group of cybersecurity startups that have scaled past the nine-figure revenue mark in under five years from founding.
Cyera has also been deploying capital into M&A. In recent months it acquired Index Ventures-backed Ryft and Genie Security, a startup less than a year old at the time of purchase. Both deals fold additional capabilities into Cyera's platform and absorb potential competitors before they reach scale — a familiar playbook for well-funded category leaders trying to consolidate a fragmented data-security market.
The 80x ARR multiple is the number that will draw scrutiny. Public cybersecurity comparables trade in the high single digits to low teens on forward revenue. Even private AI-native infrastructure companies rarely clear 50x. Pricing Cyera at 80x assumes the company can keep tripling revenue without the customer-acquisition cost curve bending sharply against it — a tall order once the obvious Fortune 500 buyers are signed.
Skeptics will note that 500 net new hires in a single year is the kind of growth that tends to outrun sales productivity. The five-month gap between the $9 billion mark and the $12 billion mark also raises the question of whether Cyera needed the capital or whether Evolution Equity Partners offered terms attractive enough to preempt a more competitive 2026 process. The company's denial of the reported financials leaves the precise picture unclear until a formal announcement.
For the broader AI security category, the round resets expectations. If Cyera prints at $12 billion on roughly $150 million ARR, every competitor pitching data security for the AI era — from incumbent DLP vendors retooling to startups building from scratch — now has a new comp to point at. That pulls more venture capital into the space and likely accelerates the M&A cycle Cyera itself is already running. The interesting question is not whether data security is a real AI-era category — it is — but whether the eventual public-market multiple will look anything like 80x when the IPO window opens.
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