Ward served in the Coast Guard and spent nine years in the US Secret Service, and was chief information security officer (CISO) at TIAA and Home Depot. He closed the $250 million first fund late last year with co-founder Gur Talpaz, who left in April. One investment, identity security company SGNL, was sold to CrowdStrike in January for $740 million, 11 months after Brightmind led its Series A.
According to PitchBook data cited in the article, early-stage cybersecurity startups are outraising later-stage rivals for the first time in more than a decade: $4.7 billion in seed-through-Series B deals through September, more than all of 2025, even though deal count fell from 358 to 248. The average cybersecurity seed round rose to $8.4 million from $5.54 million a year earlier.
Ward questions how much of the money really goes to AI security: PitchBook classified 278 deals in the first half of 2026 that way, while his team's manual review found only 30. About 20% of the second fund will go to AI infrastructure, and he expects a meaningful share of teams to come from Israel again.