Stephen Ward, founder of New York cybersecurity investor Brightmind Partners, is raising a second fund targeting roughly the same size as its $250 million debut. He will do so as the firm's only general partner.
Co-founder Gur Talpaz left in April, along with another early colleague. Ward attributed the split to "differences in opinions regarding operations and the future of Brightmind." In August, Talpaz and Tayler Sipperly co-founded Cognition with Elia Zaitsev, CrowdStrike's global CTO. It is understood to be targeting a $170 million first fund for cybersecurity startups. Sipperly says the pair continue to support Brightmind's portfolio companies and its limited partners, and remain on several of those boards.
Brightmind launched in 2024. Its first fund, closed late last year, was filled by fewer than 20 limited partners, including Insight Partners' Jeff Horing. It has made 14 investments and has one exit so far: SGNL, an identity security startup that CrowdStrike agreed in January to buy for $740 million, 11 months after Brightmind led its Series A.
Ward says founders should "sell on the way up." In cybersecurity, he argues, the best exits come between a startup's third and seventh years. His team tracks every security acquisition and what buyers choose to build versus buy. Some investors asked why Brightmind did not hold SGNL longer, but Ward says experience lets him warn founders when they are about to "race past the turn."
His background is unusual for a VC. Ward served in the Coast Guard and spent nine years at the Secret Service. He then worked at J.P. Morgan, was CISO at TIAA and Home Depot, and spent three years at Insight Partners, where he worked on Wiz, Abnormal Security and Elisity. He is raising at a moment when early-stage cybersecurity startups are drawing more capital than later-stage rivals for the first time in over a decade.
