Data breaches are resulting in more investment in cybersecurity companies, The Wall Street Journal reports. “Five years ago, it would have been a very hard sell,” said Max Krohn, cofounder of encryption start-up Keybase with Chris Coyne. “Probably, it would have been, ‘Sorry, no one cares about security, therefore this product doesn’t have much of a hope.’” Keybase, a new Dropbox-style file-sharing service that employs public-key encryption, has landed $10.8 million in funding from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz; UK big-data privacy start-up Privitar recently landed $1 million. Such investors “say they likely wouldn't have invested in a company like Keybase even two years ago,” the report states, noting that in the first half of this year, “venture firms invested $1.2 billion in cybersecurity start-ups … up sharply from $771 million in 2013’s first half.” Editor’s Note: The Privacy Advisor recently looked at VC attitudes toward privacy.
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