Cylus, a global rail cybersecurity company, has announced the successful closing of its $30M Series B investment round. Led by Dell Technologies Capital, General Electric Ventures and G4S Technology, this Series B round serves to accelerate Cylus’s mission to provide secure railway networks for businesses and customers worldwide.
With the additional funding, Cylus plans to expand its team and continue developing its rail cybersecurity solution.
Cylus raises $30M Series B to help protect trains and metros worldwide
Cylus is an international technology company established in 2016. Its mission is to protect important transportation assets such as trains and metros worldwide. The company uses proprietary products based on cutting-edge research to detect cyber threats and malware that can sabotage these assets.
Cylus recently raised a $30M Series B financing round to reinforce their efforts to develop innovative products and expand its team. The goal of this funding round is to allow the company to bring their railway cybersecurity technology solutions worldwide. Cylus’ core product lies at the intersection of deep learning, hardware integrations, wireless communication security, and cyber-threat intelligence — all of which helps protect against most advanced cyber-attacks targeting critical transportation infrastructures.
Cylus plans to use this additional funding boost from the Series B financing round towards expanding its sales & marketing effort and investing further in research & development. This will help increase the production speed leading towards faster customer end dates while ensuring the highest quality of service delivery remains in check.
Overview of Series B Funding
Cylus, a cybersecurity firm offering solutions to protect against malicious cyber threats to railways and other transport infrastructures, announced its series B funding of US$30M on October 20th 2020. The round was led by blue-chip venture capital firm Insight Partners alongside existing investors Pitango, Avigdor Willenz, and Updates VC. This brings the total raised amount of Cylus to US$45M since its inception in 2017.
The funds will support rapid growth in areas like engineering and sales. This is part of the company’s ambition to become a worldwide leader in railway security to expand their presence across Europe, Asia and North America. The funds will also be used toward product development and research investments and financing potential strategic acquisitions that would help advance railway cybersecurity into the future.
How the Funding Will Be Used
Cylus recently raised $30M in their Series B funding to help protect trains and metros worldwide. This significant accomplishment will help them expand their team and further develop their cutting-edge technology.
In the following article, we will discuss in detail the plans Cylus has for the funding and how it will be used.
Expansion of Team
Cylus will use the proceeds from its $30M Series B funding to grow the number of employees working on developing its cybersecurity solution built specifically for railway and metro systems.
Cylus intends to boost its professional team, comprising subject matter experts from operating railway and metro companies, network security specialists, software engineers, data scientists and hardware experts. This growth in personnel will enable Cylus to increase its global presence and continue introducing cutting-edge technology that can seamlessly integrate into a wide variety of rail infrastructure lineups.
The new employees will help Cylus bolster their current solutions suite, expand existing customer deployments and build more integrations with leading third-party software solutions to create an even stronger security offering. Additionally, the company will continue optimising these offerings by investing in training courses, pre-sales resources and post-sales support teams.
These investments will further protect passenger rail networks and provide customers with access to new capabilities that support security personnel’s mission critical tasks. Allowing them to respond quicker and more effectively should threats occur as well as reallocate resources towards more innovative uses.
Development of Solutions
Cylus’s core mission is to provide secure and efficient rail transport. The company plans to use the Series B funding to expand its team and continue developing its advanced security solutions to achieve this goal. These include hardware and software that leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, and cyber intelligence.
The company’s cutting-edge security technology will focus on preventing cyber threats onboard rail vehicles and protecting the critical infrastructures around them. In particular, Cylus plans on deploying its robust solutions on various kinds of trains and metros globally. These security measures will help protect both passengers and railway operations by pre-empting malicious activities or intrusion attempts, shielding vital assets from unauthorised entry and detecting irregular traffic patterns that indicate a possible breach of safety protocols.
By expanding its offerings into additional markets, Cylus aims to advance railway safety through a targeted combination of innovative technologies. This includes mobile ECG monitoring that allows operators to detect anomalies in real-time for predictive maintenance purposes, analytics tools for optimising delays on busy lines or avoiding overcrowding at stations, and innovative driver monitoring systems for assessing train operational performance across different routes.
These advanced solutions are intended to help create secure environments for passengers who depend on public transportation daily; be it tracing social distancing compliance within stations or providing a secure communication channel between railways operators and other third parties such as hospitals in case of emergencies.
Benefits to the Global Rail Industry
With the recent news of Cylus raising $30M series B to help protect trains and metros worldwide, it is clear that the global rail industry will benefit.
Cylus plans to use the funding to expand its team and continue developing its solution. Doing so will help ensure the safety of passengers, operators and infrastructure on mass transit systems worldwide.
Security Enhancements
The global rail industry can benefit significantly from implementing cutting-edge security solutions to protect railway systems and passengers. Security enhancements are key in today’s world. Cylus recently received $30 million in series B funding to expand its team of experts and continue developing its solution, which focuses on cybersecurity and making smarter trains.
Cylus has developed a range of tools designed to improve railway system protection. These tools provide real-time monitoring and alerting capabilities, detect potential threats early on, better identify risk areas effectively, enhance compliance with safety standards, provide comprehensive traceability for changes in train operations software, automate the entire audit process and more.
These advancements have allowed transport administrators to better identify potential attack vectors more quickly and accurately than what was available previously. By using a combination of technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms and anomaly detection methods that simultaneously track operational parameters from different onboard systems, Cylus can now help protect metro depots from cyber-attacks with greater accuracy. With these new capabilities, many transport companies have improved their capacity for protecting their systems against malicious actors while improving safety protocols for passengers worldwide.
Improved Efficiency
The use of technology and digital solutions to drive efficiency has become essential to ensure competitive advantages in the global rail industry. Cylus is devoted to improving railway safety and customer experience through its specialised cyber security solutions. These cyber security measures allow for the recovery of vital data that can optimise maintenance and performance management processes, resulting in reduced downtime and improved safety. Moreover, using technology for track monitoring allows for real-time feedback on rail performance, changes in infrastructure conditions, and early identification of potential risks.
Cylus’s patented Cyber-Physical Retrofit solution enables rail operators to reduce downtime while improving operations and fast tracking post acquisition integration. This solution is particularly important in cases where network visibility of partner networks increases after a merger or takeover of a new transport system or private carrier. It provides a unified monitoring approach that helps significantly reduce the time it takes to comply with current safety standards while saving money on compliance measures. Additionally, leveraging real-time analytics facilitates a preemptive approach towards maintenance and identifying unforeseen occurrences quickly so they can be addressed promptly before they disrupt operations further down the line.
These capabilities help improve operational efficiencies and increase railway network resilience in parts of the world where existing infrastructure isn’t up to current standards, such as parts of Africa or Asia Pacific regions – removing the need to invest heavily into traditional infrastructure upgrades that may take years before making an impact on ability or disruption frequency. In addition, such an approach will not only help improve both service reliability & customer confidence but also give greater insight into operational assessments & performance reviews; two factors often overlooked when considering traditional rail upgrades.
Challenges Ahead
After raising $30M Series B in venture capital funding, Cylus is looking to the future with new and exciting plans. With so much at stake, the company will face several challenges as they strive to protect trains and metros worldwide.
In this article, we’ll explore the challenges Cylus could face in their mission to protect the railways from cyber-attack.
Regulatory Compliance
Several regulatory requirements must be met to successfully bring Cylus’s solution to railways worldwide. Compliance with varying local regulations is one of the most significant challenges, from different safety and data protection standards to laws regarding labelling and product registration.
Dealing with numerous local regulators can be arduous for train operators already dealing with tight budgets and timelines. As such, Cylus must ensure its security solution is highly adaptable to effectively meet the various regulatory processes in each locale.
Consequently, Cylus plans on building out its international team to further establish relationships with local partners who understand the nuances of pertinent regulations. Additionally, they will use these partnerships to strengthen their Case Management platform which will guide customers through regulator compliance obligations about their specific rail networks. With these efforts, Cylus aims to simplify the process of bringing its security solution worldwide so that more operators can enjoy the benefits and peace-of-mind of their advanced protection system.
Adoption of New Technologies
One of the major challenges Cylus faces in protecting rail networks from cyber threats is the widespread adoption of new technologies. In today’s digital world, more and more systems are connected to networks, such as train control and ticketing systems. Unfortunately, as these new technologies become commonplace, they become a prime target for cyber criminals.
Cylus must also ensure railway operators adopt their solution in countries with different regulations and implementation standards. This can be difficult and time consuming as it requires understanding each country’s local network architectures, regulation and policies.
Another challenge is that the solution must be periodically updated to stay up-to-date with the latest threats, techniques and trends attackers employ. Cylus must continually develop their solution to maintain high levels of security against evolving cyber threats and attack vectors. Consequently, alarmingly high testing, validation, and security certification processes should be conducted before production deployments.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Cylus’ Series B funding of $30M is a major milestone in its mission to protect the safety of trains and metros worldwide. With this funding, Cylus can expand its team and continue developing its innovative cybersecurity solution to detect cyber threats in real-time.
This is a great opportunity for Cylus to bring its vision to life.
Summary of Cylus’ Series B Funding
Cylus, a railway cybersecurity company, recently announced it had raised $30M in Series B funding. Canaan Partners Israel and SBI Investment led the round with participation from existing investors K1, TLV Partners and 83North. Cylus’ mission is to protect metros and trains from cyber-attacks that could compromise their physical safety. In addition, it offers its innovative cybersecurity solution that helps rail operators address the mounting complexity of the connected railway systems.
This new funding will be used to expand the team at Cylus and continue developing its revolutionary solution for protecting railway systems from cyber-attacks. The team includes experienced professionals who understand the complexity of securing highly connected train infrastructure, including veterans of elite military units and international software companies like Microsoft. This Series B capital brings Cylus’ total raised amount to $45 million.
Cylus will use this investment to help pave the way forward in providing end-to-end cybersecurity for rail networks worldwide!