How Iberia’s serial operators are building — and exiting — the next generation of cyber security.
An opinion & market perspective on Spain & Portugal cyber security M&A and fundraising. Produced by Dougan Milne, MD Tech — Borealis Partners.
Cyber security is the first Iberian technology sector to build a true founder flywheel — a self-reinforcing loop of serial operators, recycled capital, and early international exits — and the founders who design for that exit from day one will capture the value the rest of the market is leaving on the table.
The operators who built the region’s first generation of security businesses — Devo, Blueliv, Buguroo, Panda Security, VirusTotal, S21sec — are now founding the second (Onum, 8Layers, Acoru, Zynap, Xygeni), advising the third, and, through funds like 33N Ventures and HWK TechInvestment, funding all of it.
“In an ecosystem like Spain’s the critical mass for large local acquisitions simply is not there — so in the end you get bought from abroad.”
Far from a weakness, that gravity is the mechanism that powers the flywheel. The rational founder response is not to resist it, but to architect for it — to frame the company as “Export Ready” from the beginning, treating exit readiness as a discipline built from day one, not a reaction to an inbound approach.
A compounding loop of talent, capital and credibility — tighter than the consumer founder-mafias, because security talent recycles within the sector. Tap a stage.
Together, Spain and Portugal form one of Western Europe’s fastest-growing security markets — anchored to mandatory EU compliance cycles and a structural talent constraint.
International buyers acquiring differentiated technology before continental scale. Capability-acquisition, not generic growth.
International acquirers and growth funds are concentrating on the independent software scale-ups and the AI-native entrants beneath the incumbents.
Deliberately provocative. Where a claim invites a counter-example, we say so — and we mean the invitation.