Cybersecurity Startup Kobalt Raises $1 Million Round

Cybersecurity startup Kobalt has raised a CAD $1 million round led by its co-founders, Pankaj Agarwal and Michael Argast, and including Version One Ventures.

Version One’s Boris Wertz is both a co-founder and an investor in Kobalt.

The Vancouver-based company aims to bring the monitoring capabilities of enterprise-class security teams to smaller organizations. The company builds on various existing frameworks and toolsets, combining the capabilities of the cloud and data at scale to address the complexity of cybersecurity.

Kobalt is the first investment for Version One Ventures in the security space and Wertz outlined his excitement around the deal in a blog post. “We have been looking at this space for a while, but never found the right entry point. I am excited that we finally are active in the security vertical and hope to invest in more security start-ups down the road”, wrote Wertz.

Kobalt will also be the first startup incubated by Version One and will move into the Version One offices in Yaletown.

Wertz continues, “Incubation requires much more hands-on involvement than simply investing in a company. I don’t anticipate that we’ll do many incubations. But, this was a unique chance to work with one of Vancouver’s best entrepreneurs. Pankaj Agarwal has built several very successful services businesses in the tech space, including Optimus Information and Trinimbus”.