We look at the former cybersecurity unicorn and its competitors SentinelOne and CrowdStrike using CB Insights employee headcount data and Yardstiq customer perspectives. We also break down what this means for CISOs, IT buyers, and investors.
There are 50+ cybersecurity unicorns (private companies valued at $1B+). You can see all of them on our unicorn market map here.
Cybereason just fell off the list.
The Boston-based company raised a $100M round from SoftBank in April 2023, reportedly at a 90%+ discount to its $3.1B valuation in 2021.
The company is reducing costs, too. While Cybereason announced layoffs totaling 300 workers, it’s actually lost closer to 500 since its peak of 1,351, as we can see on its CBI profile below.
Employee headcount data is coming to the CB Insights platform this month. See what it can do for you here.
Cybereason, which competes in the endpoint detection & response (EDR) market, faces stiff competition.
Its public competitors like SentinelOne ($4.6B market cap) and CrowdStrike ($28B market cap) have, unlike Cybereason, been aggressively growing their teams, as the comparison from the CB Insights platform below highlights.
Customer perspectives
In our conversations with software buyers about EDR, SentinelOne and CrowdStrike are most frequently considered, alongside solutions from incumbents like McAfee and Microsoft.
Here is the “voice of the customer” from Yardstiq on EDR vendors in the market.
Cybereason customer had unforeseen expenses
CyBEREASON
We had to get a partner to manage it all for us…because it’s just too big for the security teams in the business to manage. So we had to use a third party to manage all the alerting for us…We were naive at thinking that we could do it ourselves; it turned out to not be the case. That’s a big expense. — CISO, $1B+ valuation insurance company
Price won this SentinelOne customer over
SentinelOne
Between SentinelOne and CrowdStrike, it just came down to price. CrowdStrike is not very lenient on pricing. I would say that CrowdStrike’s biggest downfall is their negotiation; they try to stay a little too hard to that and aren’t as great at getting a deal. I’ve been a CrowdStrike customer before. It’s a great solution but it’s expensive, and SentinelOne is just as good. — CISO, healthcare company
McAfee runner-up to CrowdStrike
CROWDSTRIKE
We had evaluated SentinelOne, CrowdStrike, and also McAfee…The best one obviously was CrowdStrike, but the runner-up was McAfee. McAfee was doing really well on Windows and Mac. The only minus point was Linux OS. CrowdStrike was working really well on all flavors of operating systems like Windows, Mac, and Linux. — Senior Security Manager, $1B+ market cap software company
User experience is key
SENTINELONE
CrowdStrike was the closest one with regard to capabilities. But from a user friction standpoint, we found that SentinelOne was the quietest. It didn’t talk to anybody. It didn’t interrupt…We really like the way it worked. It just worked quietly in the background without making noises and that made us feel that it was the most appropriate solution for us. — CISO, insurance company
Not all bad news for Cybereason — beat CrowdStrike on pricing
CYBEREASON
We looked at CrowdStrike and we looked at Microsoft in addition to Cybereason. Both actually were very strong contenders. CrowdStrike, the pricing was just out of line with what our budgeting was…And Microsoft was very strong price-wise, but they were missing some components we needed technically. — CISO, American research university
Funding trends
In total, Cybereason has raised $814M in equity funding — more even than its now-public competitors.
Cybereason is one of many startups that have looked to fundraise their way to growth.
With overall VC funding and valuations on the decline, the “overfeeding” of unprofitable unicorns is getting greater scrutiny.
And Cybereason isn’t alone. Other unicorns are also feeling the pressure, as seen by significant down rounds from Stripe, Oda, and more.
