Welcome to The Trident Radar!

A quieter week on the mega-deal front, but plenty of signal in the details. AI security M&A continued with Varonis snapping up AllTrue.ai for $150M, while the mid-market and SMB security space saw a surge of activity — RapidFort, Orion Security, RADICL, and Lema all closed Series A rounds within days of each other.

The most interesting thread? Post-quantum cryptography. Reliance Global Group's acquisition of Israeli startup Enquantum, announced this week, signals that enterprise buyers are starting to take the quantum threat seriously. More on that below.

Lets dive in.

In our latest Cyber CEO episode, Josh Keeley sat down in London with Geoff Brown, CEO of Silobreaker, to discuss what it takes to build security programs at a serious scale.

Geoff’s career spans national security, commercial intelligence and cyber security - including six years building New York City’s cyber security agency, scaling from a basement office in Brooklyn to protecting a million endpoints across 100+ departments and 340,000+ identities.

Insider Insight: The Quantum Clock Is Ticking: Why Enquantum's Exit Matters
Company Spotlight: Refute

RapidFort — Series A — $42M (Forgepoint Capital, Blue Cloud Ventures)
Helps enterprises reduce container and application attack surfaces by removing unused code and dependencies. The "software diet" thesis is gaining traction as supply chain security matures.

Category: Software Attack Surface Optimisation
HQ: Sunnyvale, CA

Orion Security — Series A — $32M (Norwest Venture Partners)
Building on the DSPM wave with a focus on proactive breach prevention rather than just data discovery.

Category: AI Data Security / Breach Prevention
HQ: Tel Aviv, Israel

RADICL — Series A — $31M (Paladin Capital)
$107M post-money valuation Defense-grade security for the companies that actually need it but can't afford enterprise pricing. Interesting positioning as supply chain security requirements cascade down to smaller vendors.

Category: Military-Grade SMB Cybersecurity
HQ: Boulder, CO

Lema — Series A — $24M (Team8)
TPRM remains a hot category as enterprises grapple with vendor sprawl and regulatory pressure.

Category: Third-Party Risk Management
HQ: Chicago, IL

Refute — Seed — £5M / ~$6.8M (Amadeus Capital Partners)
Tackling hybrid warfare and AI-generated disinformation at scale. Founded by former intelligence analysts with backgrounds in tracking terrorist attacks and financial crime. National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF) participation signals government interest.
See Company Spotlight below.

Category: AI Disinformation Detection
HQ: London, UK

Guard Owl — Seed — $3M (Tower Research Ventures)
Bridging cyber and physical security with AI-driven operations management.

Category: AI Physical Security Operations
HQ: Chatsworth, CA

Myota — Later Stage VC — $3M (6th round)
Continuing to build in the data protection space with a focus on AI-driven approaches.

Category: AI Data Security
HQ: Blue Bell, PA

Umanitek — Early Stage — Undisclosed (KBW Ventures)
European play in the identity security space with AI-native architecture.

Category: AI Identity Protection
HQ: Zug, Switzerland

CyberFox — PE Growth — Undisclosed (Level Equity, Radian Capital)
MSP-focused identity management continues to attract private equity interest as the channel becomes increasingly strategic for security vendors.

Category: IAM / Password Management for MSPs
HQ: Tampa, FL

Magna5 — Secondary Buyout (AEA Investors)
Another managed services play changing hands as PE consolidation in the MSSP space continues.

Category: Managed IT / Cybersecurity Services
HQ: Pittsburgh, PA

Nine companies joined the 2026 accelerator programme:

Nine cybersecurity companies ceased operations this week: Copycat, Cymatic, Defants, Guardinex, Ledger Works, Quiver, Redefine Technologies, SafeHill, Zenn

A sobering reminder that funding doesn't guarantee survival. The market continues to consolidate around companies with clear paths to revenue.

_{*Not all weekly deals are listed*}

AllTrue.ai → Acquired by Varonis
Deal Type: Merger / Acquisition
Deal Date: February 2026
Deal Size: $150M

MightyID → Acquired by Semperis
Deal Type: Merger / Acquisition
Deal Date: February 2026
Deal Size: ~$20M

Enquantum → Definitive Agreement to be Acquired by Reliance Global Group (NAS: EZRA)
Deal Type: Merger / Acquisition
Deal Date: February 2026
Deal Size: $2.125M

VERIMATRIX Extended Threat Defence → Acquired by GuardSquare
Deal Type: LBO
Deal Date: February 2026
Deal Size: $8.5M

This week, Reliance Global Group announced a definitive agreement to acquire Enquantum, an Israeli post-quantum cryptography startup, for $2.125M. It's a small deal, barely a blip on the M&A radar. But it's one of the first PQC-focused acquisitions to close, and it signals something important: the quantum security market is shifting from theoretical to operational.

What's driving it?

The threat isn't theoretical anymore. Nation-states are already running "harvest now, decrypt later" operations, intercepting encrypted data today with the expectation that quantum computers will crack it within the decade. The data most at risk has a long shelf life: biometric records, health data, national security secrets, trade secrets. If your data needs to stay confidential for 10+ years, you're already in the window.

NIST finalised its first three post-quantum cryptography standards in August 2024, and the compliance clock is now running. Under NIST guidance, quantum-vulnerable algorithms will be deprecated by 2030 and disallowed entirely by 2035. For organisations handling sensitive data, that's not a distant deadline — it's a migration that needs to start now.

Why should CISOs care this week?

The FBI, NIST, and CISA have declared 2026 the "Year of Quantum Security." In January, CISA published its first list of IT product categories where PQC-capable products are "widely available," directing federal agencies to procure only PQC-capable products in those categories. That procurement pressure will cascade to enterprise vendors selling into government.

Meanwhile, hardware is advancing faster than expected. A June 2025 paper by Google researcher Craig Gidney demonstrated that software optimisations could reduce the qubits needed to break RSA-2048 from ~20 million to under 1 million. Cloudflare called it "the biggest breakthrough so far," estimating it compressed expert timelines by roughly seven years.

The Trident Take

Enquantum's exit is a leading indicator. Post-quantum cryptography is moving from the CISO's "future problems" list to the "current projects" column. Enterprises should be conducting cryptographic inventories, building crypto-agility into their architecture, and pressure-testing their vendor supply chains for PQC readiness.

The companies that start now will be ahead of the compliance curve. The ones that wait will face compressed timelines, higher costs, and data that was already compromised years before they acted.

AI-Powered Disinformation Detection for the Hybrid Warfare Era

Website: www.refute.com
Founded: 2024 (formerly Dispell AI)
HQ: London
Employees: 8
Total Raised: $9.71M

Refute is building AI-powered detection for disinformation campaigns — the kind of coordinated information operations that blend state-sponsored narratives, AI-generated content, and social media amplification to damage organisations and institutions.

What they do: The platform uses a quantitative approach to disinformation detection, fusing data across channels to trace narratives, model threat actor behaviours, and score threats over time. Rather than playing whack-a-mole with individual fake posts, Refute maps the infrastructure and patterns behind coordinated campaigns.

The team: Co-founders Tom Garnett (CEO) and Vlad Galu (CTO) bring 40+ years of combined experience in data analysis for terrorist attacks, cyber threats, identity theft, and money laundering investigations. The kind of background you want when tracking sophisticated information operations.

Funding: £5M seed round closed February 2, 2026, led by Amadeus Capital Partners. Previous investors include Playfair Capital, Episode 1 Ventures, and notably the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), the UK government's strategic investment arm for national security technologies. Angel investors include former Digital Shadows co-founder James Chappell.

Why it matters: AI-generated disinformation is scaling faster than human moderation can handle. Refute's approach is to treat disinformation as a threat intelligence problem, rather than a content moderation problem. This positions them well as enterprises, governments, and institutions recognise they need proactive detection capabilities.

The Trident Take: NSSIF participation is a strong signal. The UK government doesn't invest lightly in early-stage companies, and their presence on the cap table suggests Refute is building something with genuine national security relevance. With hybrid warfare increasingly targeting commercial enterprises alongside government institutions, the market for this capability is expanding beyond traditional defence customers.

Senior Sales Engineer
💰 $170K USD
📍 USA (Remote)
Security posture management vendor helping enterprises validate their security controls continuously.
Contact: [email protected]

VP Engineering
💰 $225K USD
📍 USA
Data security operations platform building out engineering leadership for next growth phase.
Contact: [email protected]

Account Executive
💰 $150K base / $300K OTE
📍 USA AI-powered SecOps platform focused on vulnerability triage and remediation. High-growth opportunity.
Contact: [email protected]

Product Marketing Manager
💰 £100K
📍 UK / Europe Ethical hacker bug bounty platform expanding marketing team across EMEA.
Contact: [email protected]

Ready to make your next move? These roles won't stay open long.

Have market intelligence to share? Our network sees deals before they're announced, hiring freezes before they're public, and technology shifts before they hit the headlines.

Send us your tips:

Email: [email protected]
All sources protected. We verify before we publish.