Key Takeaways
- • Stephen Ward, co-founder of Brightmind Partners, is raising a second fund targeting roughly the same size as its debut $250 million fund, now as the firm's sole general partner after co-founder Gur Talpaz left in April.
- • Brightmind's first fund has made 14 investments with one exit to date: CrowdStrike's agreed $740 million acquisition of identity security startup SGNL, announced in January.
- • Ward's firm plans to put about 20% of the second fund into AI infrastructure deals and expects a meaningful number of teams from Israel, per the article.
- • PitchBook counts $4.7 billion in seed-through-Series B cybersecurity deals through September, already ahead of all of 2025, even as deal count fell to 248 from 358.
- • Ward says he believes only 30 of PitchBook's 278 first-half 2026 AI security deals are true AI security companies, based on his team's manual review.
Summary
Stephen Ward, a former Secret Service agent and former CISO at TIAA and Home Depot, is preparing a second fund of roughly $250 million for Brightmind Partners, the two-year-old New York cybersecurity venture firm he co-founded. The debut fund closed late last year with co-founder Gur Talpaz. Talpaz left in April along with another early colleague, Tayler Sipperly, leaving Ward as sole general partner. Ward cited "differences in opinions regarding operations and the future of Brightmind" as the reason for the split. In August, Talpaz and Sipperly co-founded a new firm, Cognition, which is reportedly targeting a $170 million first fund. Sipperly said he and Talpaz continue to support existing Brightmind portfolio companies and remain on several of their boards.
The debut fund's one exit is SGNL, the identity security startup CrowdStrike agreed in January to buy for $740 million, about 11 months after Brightmind led its Series A. Ward argues venture investors should sell on the way up, and says the best exits typically arrive between a startup's third and seventh years. His team tracks security acquisitions and what buyers are building versus buying to anticipate deals.
Brightmind's second fund will be roughly 20% focused on AI infrastructure, with the remainder largely cybersecurity. Roughly 40% of the debut fund's startups are based in Tel Aviv. Per PitchBook, early-stage cybersecurity startups are outraising later-stage rivals for the first time in more than a decade, and the average seed round rose to $8.4 million in the first nine months of the year from $5.54 million a year earlier. Ward questions how much AI security activity is genuine, citing his team's review of PitchBook's 278 AI-classified deals in the first half of 2026.
Ward's path to venture capital began with the Coast Guard, followed by nine years in the Secret Service. He is known for an earlier case in which he arrested a hacker responsible for a major credit card data theft, then flipped him as an informant. The hacker later implicated Ward, and Ward spent about 18 months clearing his name. The hacker received a 20-year sentence, and the story was adapted by Audible into the podcast "Operation Firewall." Ward later held roles at J.P. Morgan, TIAA, and Home Depot, then spent three years at Insight Partners before founding Brightmind at age 49 with fewer than 20 limited partners, including Insight's Jeff Horing.
The debut fund's one exit is SGNL, the identity security startup CrowdStrike agreed in January to buy for $740 million, about 11 months after Brightmind led its Series A. Ward argues venture investors should sell on the way up, and says the best exits typically arrive between a startup's third and seventh years. His team tracks security acquisitions and what buyers are building versus buying to anticipate deals.
Brightmind's second fund will be roughly 20% focused on AI infrastructure, with the remainder largely cybersecurity. Roughly 40% of the debut fund's startups are based in Tel Aviv. Per PitchBook, early-stage cybersecurity startups are outraising later-stage rivals for the first time in more than a decade, and the average seed round rose to $8.4 million in the first nine months of the year from $5.54 million a year earlier. Ward questions how much AI security activity is genuine, citing his team's review of PitchBook's 278 AI-classified deals in the first half of 2026.
Ward's path to venture capital began with the Coast Guard, followed by nine years in the Secret Service. He is known for an earlier case in which he arrested a hacker responsible for a major credit card data theft, then flipped him as an informant. The hacker later implicated Ward, and Ward spent about 18 months clearing his name. The hacker received a 20-year sentence, and the story was adapted by Audible into the podcast "Operation Firewall." Ward later held roles at J.P. Morgan, TIAA, and Home Depot, then spent three years at Insight Partners before founding Brightmind at age 49 with fewer than 20 limited partners, including Insight's Jeff Horing.
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