Point3 Security’s acquisition by Cyber Capital Partners allows it to grow to meet cyber talent needs

At a moment when cybersecurity is top of mind around the world, Baltimore-based cybersecurity talent training company Point3 Security has been acquired by cybersecurity VC firm Cyber Capital Partners through its holding company CyberPoint3 Holdings, LLC.

The acquisition gives Point3 Security the financial backing and business infrastructure to grow the roughly 25-employee company to fill the global demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

There are more than 4 million such pros worldwide — but there’s also a cybersecurity workforce gap of more than 2.7 million, per (ISC)²’s 2021 study. The workforce needs to grow by 65% to effectively defend organizations’ critical assets and prevent the ransomware attacks that leave cities, school districts and state health departments crippled.

“The acquisition validates the thesis that it takes a human to get all the things done. We can’t rely on tools,” Evan Dornbush, Point3 Security’s cofounder and CEO, told Technical.ly. “Hackers break tools for a living; more software is not the solution. We need a capable workforce. Cyber Capital Partners recognizes that.”

Point3 Security focuses on demonstrated technical competency in its training and job placements. The growth now allowed by the acquisition enables the company to broaden its services and lower its prices, Dornbush said, so people such as college students can afford services typically offered to enterprises and businesses. It takes Point3 from primarily a B2B company to B2C.

Dornbush considers the company a classic Baltimore success story: Point3 started out a two-man operation sans MBAs going into what they were told was an oversaturated market, working out of the ETC (Emerging Technology Centers) and growing until the operation was flipped with an acquisition.

As the company grows further, Dornbush said the plan is to remain in Baltimore. For now, the firm is still at the Mindhub in Locust Point but plans to get its own office space as the team works out the logistics of COVID and remote work, as not all employees live in the city.

“Being a Baltimore-based company for us is about showing what you can do,” Dornbush said. “It doesn’t matter where you came from. If you got the skills and drive, there’s a need for you in this [cybersecurity] economy. That’s what we’re trying to help solve. Baltimore is a great breeding ground for that.”

Donte Kirby is a 2020-2022 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.