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The World Wants a Backup Plan. So Should You.
- Lytical Ventures
- Jun 4
- 4 min read
Cyber Thoughts Newsletter
JUNE 2025
The glass is half-full for cyber startups.
We’ve been traveling internationally for some events and noticed something new: countries outside the US are quietly shopping for a second computing platform—something that isn’t fully reliant on American tech. It’s not that they want to ditch AWS/Azure/Google, Palo Alto Networks, or OpenAI. They just want a plan B. The freedom to flip a switch, should they ever need to.
That’s new. And it’s not great news for the American tech brand.
Maybe it’s the threat of tariffs. Maybe it’s just that people are finally thinking about platform risk—like how we all ignore the risks of flying until a few crashes remind us of the stakes. But whatever the reason, it’s not good for US big-tech… but it might be good for security startups.
Why this matters for security startups: a world with dual platforms needs neutral tools that work across both ecosystems. And guess who’s not going to build those? The lock-in-loving tech giants. Score one for the startups.
Like Agent Mulder, we want to believe.
If you were wondering who the Mary Meeker of AI was going to be… surprise! It’s Mary Meeker.
“Who’s Mary Meeker?” Congrats on being young and full of collagen. We’d explain, but we’re out of caffeine and the will to engage. But perhaps this post on X will illuminate you:
Honestly, that cuts so deep we may never recover… Where did we put our Nuprin? “Little. Yellow. Different.” …
But back to business. Mary has returned with a 340-slide monster deck on tech trends. And while the whole thing is worth a look, here are three facts that caught our attention in the context of cybersecurity:
3 Cyber-Relevant AI Facts From Meeker’s Deck
1. AI Is Eating the World, Fast
ChatGPT hit 800 million weekly active users in just 17 months. That’s bonkers adoption speed—and bonkers scale means bonkers risk.
2. The Geopolitical Undercurrent Is Real
Open-source AI and a rapidly advancing China are putting pressure on US firms—not just in monetization, but in national security posture.
3. The Physical World Just Got Hacked
AI’s moving from code to cars, from slides to sidewalk robots. That means cyber risk is going physical, fast.
Still not convinced AI adoption is outpacing everything we’ve seen before?
Behold: a chart from Mary Meeker’s latest mega-deck tracking ChatGPT’s growth in users, subscribers, and revenue. All three are rocketing upward like they’re trying to escape Earth’s gravity… or at least escape AWS bills.
This kind of curve isn’t just impressive, it’s “hard to match, ever,” as Meeker puts it.
And here’s the kicker: wherever users stampede, risk follows.
Massive scale = massive attack surface = massive opportunity for cybersecurity innovation.
As AI spreads into mission-critical systems: from search, to semis, to surgical tools, cybersecurity will be the thin layer between mass adoption and mass recall. If only there were a VC firm focused on that sort of thing… oh, right. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Lastly, if you appreciate our highlighted content, please follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, where we regularly post about things worthy of attention.
What We're Reading
Here's a curated list of things we found interesting.
How Morgan Stanley Tackled One of Coding’s Toughest Problems
Can’t believe we are saying it, but bankers do add value! This tool helps understand legacy code and write a functional spec so another AI can re-write it in a safer programming language.
The finance giant built its own AI tool to help modernize its legacy code—something it said existing tools on the market still struggle with.
Meta Loses Majority of Original Llama AI Team to Competitors
Meta has been falling behind in the AI race and this isn’t going to help. It may also have something to do with getting in on the goldrush at a company where the stock still has room to 10x.
Meta faces a significant AI talent drain as 11 of the 14 original Llama model creators have departed, with many joining rivals like Mistral, raising questions about Meta's innovation capacity and competitive standing in the AI race.
Coinbase: Protecting Our Customers - Standing Up to Extortionists
In a gangster move, rather than pay a $20M ransom demand Coinbase is offering a $20M bounty for information leading to the criminal's arrest. Epic! Oh, and if you use Coinbase expect a lot of text spam as hackers try to phish you. Less epic.
Tl;dr: Cyber criminals bribed and recruited a group of rogue overseas support agents to steal Coinbase customer data to facilitate social engineering attacks.
Transactions
Deals that caught our eye.
Zscaler to Accelerate Innovation in AI-Powered Security Operations with Acquisition of Red Canary
Reportedly the deal is for $675M while Red Canary had previously raised $129.9M in funding.
Zscaler, the leader in cloud security, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Red Canary, a recognized leader in Managed Detection and Response (MDR). With over 10 years of expertise in security operations (SecOps), Red Canary has enabled its extensive customer base to investigate threats up to 10 times faster with 99.6% accuracy, while streamlining workflows through automated remediation.
Podcasts
What we’re listening to.
Meet the Guy Who Accidentally Stopped the World's Most Dangerous Ransomware ☠ Ep. 158 MalwareTech
MalwareTech was an anonymous young security researcher, until he stumbled upon the command and control server for WannaCry, a Windows exploit developed by the NSA and weaponized by North Korea (probably). When he registered the domain, he inadvertently hit the kill switch for this terrifying ransomware - and exposed his identity to the entire world in the process.
About Lytical
Lytical Ventures is a New York City-based venture firm investing in Corporate Intelligence, comprising cybersecurity, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Lytical’s professionals have decades of experience in direct investing generally and in Corporate Intelligence specifically.
