Participated · Series C · Nov 2024

Halcyon is a cybersecurity company built to defeat ransomware through a platform combining prevention and resilience. The product uses AI/ML models trained on ransomware samples and a proprietary Key Capture feature that lets affected organizations recover in minutes without paying ransoms. Its DXP capability stops ransomware data exfiltration and provides early warning of network infiltration. Halcyon is backed by an industry-leading ransomware warranty and reports that zero customers have experienced significant disruptions, data exfiltration, restorative backups, ransom payments, or warranty claims. The company plans to use new funding to accelerate growth and strengthen its position as a leading anti-ransomware platform provider. The company is based in Austin, Texas. Halcyon offers a dedicated anti-ransomware platform designed from day one to defeat ransomware and minimize business disruption. The platform layers AI/ML models trained solely on ransomware with bypass and evasion protection, key material capture, automated decryption, and exfiltration/extortion prevention. Halcyon positions its tooling to prevent ransomware payloads from triggering and to enable instantaneous recovery of hijacked data. The company announced a strategic investment from Cisco Investments to accelerate product development and scale adoption. Halcyon has raised over $90M to date. Global 2000 companies rely on the platform to fill endpoint protection gaps and deliver ransomware resilience with minimal business impact. Halcyon offers an autonomous anti-ransomware platform with features including anti-tamper protections, anti-data exfiltration software and "key material capture." The company says it leverages trained AI models to disrupt ransomware attacks and in some cases decrypt affected devices, and emphasizes continuous, autonomous updates to detection and prevention logic. Halcyon reports over 100 enterprise-level brand customers in addition to state-level school districts. The startup had a roughly 75-person workforce at the time of reporting and plans to double headcount by the end of 2024. Financially, Halcyon raised $44M in a Series A in April and has now closed a $40M Series B tranche, bringing total capital raised to $84M. Leadership includes co-founders Jon Miller and Ryan Smith, who previously worked at firms later acquired by BlackBerry (Cylance) and Optiv (Accuvant). Halcyon describes itself as the world’s first cyber resilience platform built from day one to defeat ransomware and extortion campaigns. Its product uses a multi-tiered approach including pre-execution AI/ML prevention, exploitation of ransomware features to disrupt attacks, advanced behavior detections to amplify EPP/EDR/XDR efficacy, and automated endpoint and network resiliency with host isolation and automated key capture/decryption. The platform aims to undo attacks in minutes, reduce recovery time from days to minutes, and eliminate the need to pay ransoms. Global 2000 companies are cited as relying on Halcyon to augment existing XDR/EDR platforms. The company says the new capital will accelerate development and adoption of the Halcyon cyber resilience platform and scale its mission to make ransomware unprofitable. Leadership quoted in the announcement includes CEO and Co‑Founder Jon Miller.