1. The Unshakable Cybersecurity Investment Thesis

Seewald outlined four pillars that make cybersecurity a uniquely resilient and growing investment category:

• Recession-Resistant Spend: Cybersecurity budgets remain consistent through economic cycles, with McKinsey forecasting a 10x upside from current spending levels.

• Active M&A Landscape: The sector is highly acquisitive, with consistent consolidation by platforms, private equity, and strategic buyers.

• The Adversarial Dynamic: The nature of asymmetric warfare (attackers need to succeed once, defenders must succeed always) creates perpetual demand for new solutions.

• The AI Accelerant: AI and machine learning are skewing asymmetries further, making attacks cheaper, faster, and more effective, thereby fueling demand for next-gen defense.

2. Sourcing & Strategy: The Thematic, Proactive Approach

Evolution Equity doesn’t wait for deals; it creates them through a proactive, thematic model:

• Conducts bottom-up and top-down analysis on emerging cybersecurity themes.

• Builds relationships with companies well before financing rounds by integrating them into its “Centers of Excellence”—leveraging its operator-built playbook, global channel networks, and customer introductions to demonstrate value upfront.

• This approach secures access to best-of-breed companies by proving they can accelerate growth.

3. Top Themes for 2026 & Beyond: The AI-Cybersecurity Nexus

Seewald highlighted two dominant, interwoven themes that will drive the next wave:

• Securing the AI Attack Surface: As organizations deploy LLMs and AI agents internally, they create vast new vulnerabilities. Companies like ProtectAI (exited to Palo Alto Networks) are pioneers. Expect more focus on securing the “agentic layer.”

• AI-Powered Defense: Using AI and machine learning to autonomously defend against AI-augmented attacks. This is becoming a critical force multiplier for defense teams.

4. The Cat-and-Mouse Game: Offense vs. Defense

• The speed of adversarial innovation is accelerating with AI, but the defense ecosystem is responding in kind.

• The solution isn’t a single “silver bullet” but layers of best-of-breed technologies from a diverse vendor ecosystem.

• This dynamic ensures continuous innovation and replacement cycles, preventing any single incumbent from dominating forever.

5. Exit Landscape: A Growing Universe of Buyers

The liquidity pathway for cybersecurity companies has expanded dramatically:

• Public Cybersecurity Platforms: (e.g., Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike) constantly acquire to refresh their tech stacks.

• Private Equity: Active as consolidators and in take-private/public strategies.

• Non-Traditional Strategics: Companies like Mastercard acquire cybersecurity tech to productize and upsell to their massive client bases.

• IPO Window: Seewald anticipates a reignited IPO market in 2026 for mature, fast-growing cybersecurity platforms.

6. Future Market Structure: The Trillion-Dollar Vision

• Seewald predicts the rise of a trillion-dollar cybersecurity company within 5-10 years, likely from today’s private cohort.

• The market will not consolidate into 1-2 players. Similar to pharma, public giants rely on acquiring R&D from innovative private companies, ensuring a fertile ecosystem for startups.

• The cycle of incumbent displacement by next-gen players will continue.

7. Talent & Specialization: The Investor’s Edge

• A massive talent shortage (often cited as millions of unfilled roles) is itself an investment driver, fueling AI/automation solutions.

• Serial entrepreneurs who have built and exited companies are cycling back, creating a virtuous cycle of experienced founders.

• For investors, specialization is key. Seewald argues that dedicated firms with deep operational expertise (like Evolution’s 35-person team) can choose better and add more value than generalists in this complex domain.

8. The Five-Year Question: AI-Native vs. Legacy

The defining question for investors will be: Can pre-AI companies successfully integrate AI, or will AI-native companies dominate?

The answer is likely a mix, but identifying companies capable of this transformation—or built for it from the start—will separate winning portfolios.