2026 SC Award winner NightDragon Wins — Investor of the Year

At a time when cybersecurity investment is measured not just by capital deployed but by operational impact, NightDragon stands apart, earning the recognition of Investor of the Year in the 2026 SC Awards.   

The firm, which manages approximately $1.5 billion in assets, has built its identity around a premise that cybersecurity is not just another technology vertical. Rather, it is foundational infrastructure for enterprise, critical infrastructure and national security.  

Approximately half of NightDragon’s current investment portfolio is dedicated to cybersecurity companies, and all of its advisory clients operate within the security sector. The firm continues to actively evaluate emerging innovators across enterprise security, critical infrastructure protection and national security markets. 

The firm’s leadership team brings more than two centuries of combined cybersecurity and technology experience. CEO Dave DeWalt previously led McAfee, FireEye and Documentum, while other senior leaders have held executive roles at companies such as Mandiant, Forescout, Juniper Networks and other major security and technology firms. The team also includes strategic and financial expertise from organizations including Deloitte and J.P. Morgan. 

NightDragon’s portfolio spans critical segments of modern cybersecurity including investments in Horizon3.ai, advancing autonomous penetration testing and AI-driven attack surface management, HUMAN, focused on bot mitigation and fraud prevention at scale, Interos, modernizing supply chain risk visibility through automation and AI, Immuta, delivering automated data access governance, iboss, providing secure networking and SASE-based connectivity, Mezmo, enhancing observability data usability, Onapsis, protecting mission-critical enterprise applications such as SAP and Oracle and IronCircle, advancing AI-enabled cybersecurity workforce training. 

Across current and previous investment vehicles, NightDragon’s extended portfolio includes companies such as Claroty, Dataminr, Mandiant, ForgeRock, FireEye, Forescout Technologies and other firms that have helped define modern security categories. 

“Nightdragon is a great firm and invests in great companies,” said Gregory Wilson, the global CISO at Whirlpool and SC Media awards judge.