Stephen Ward spent years chasing hackers for the Secret Service, then spent 18 months clearing his own name after one of them tried to implicate him. Now the ex-federal agent, former CISO and venture investor is raising a second cybersecurity fund for Brightmind Partners, betting that the best returns come from backing startups before the market gets too attached to the IPO story.
From Secret Service agent to cybersecurity VC
Ward’s path to venture capital is unusually layered. Before co-founding Brightmind Partners, the New York-based firm he launched with Gur Talpaz, he served in the Coast Guard, spent nine years in the Secret Service and later held CISO roles at TIAA and Home Depot. He says those jobs shaped his view that investors should be realistic about exits rather than assuming every startup will eventually go public.
“You have to sell on the way up,” Ward said, describing the approach that helped define Brightmind’s first fund. That debut vehicle closed at $250 million late last year, a sizable first raise for a two-year-old firm focused on cybersecurity and adjacent infrastructure.
The arrest that changed everything
Ward’s national-security experience included a case that ended up altering his life. While stationed in New York, he arrested a hacker responsible for what was then the largest credit card data theft of its era. Instead of prosecuting him immediately, Ward flipped the suspect into an informant and ran him for about three years.
But the hacker kept operating behind Ward’s back. After being caught again, he told the agency Ward was involved, which triggered a separate investigation. Ward had already left the Secret Service for the private sector by then, and he says it took roughly 18 months to clear his name. He described that period as emotionally punishing, saying it felt “almost like a spouse cheating on you,” given how much he loved the agency.
The hacker ultimately received a 20-year sentence. Audible later bought the rights to the story and turned it into the eight-episode podcast Operation Firewall.
Brightmind’s first fund and a fast exit
Brightmind’s first fund has already produced one notable win. In January, CrowdStrike agreed to buy SGNL, an identity security startup, for $740 million just 11 months after Brightmind led its Series A round. That deal reinforced Ward’s belief that early exits can be the right exits, especially in cybersecurity, where he says the strongest sales often happen between a startup’s third and seventh years.
Ward says Brightmind studies which companies large security vendors are building versus buying. The goal is to figure out when a startup fits a likely acquisition path and when it does not. He argues that timing matters as much as product quality, especially when big platforms can quickly react to one another’s moves.
- Brightmind’s debut fund: $250 million
- Fund investments to date: 14
- Known exit so far: SGNL’s sale to CrowdStrike for $740 million
Raising a second fund without a co-founder
Ward is now raising a second fund of roughly the same size as the first, but he will do it without Talpaz, who left in April along with another early colleague. Ward is now Brightmind’s sole general partner.
Asked about the split, Ward cited “differences in opinions regarding operations and the future of Brightmind.” In August, Talpaz and Sipperly co-founded another firm, Cognition, with Elia Zaitsev, CrowdStrike’s global CTO, and are reportedly targeting a $170 million first fund. Sipperly said he and Talpaz continue to support Brightmind’s portfolio companies and limited partners, and remain on several boards.
Despite the personnel changes, Ward appears to have momentum. He says fewer than 20 limited partners backed the first fund, including Jeff Horing of Insight Partners, where Ward previously worked after leaving Home Depot.
Why Ward thinks cybersecurity is still inefficient
Ward’s thesis is built around specialization. He believes early-stage cybersecurity startups are raising more capital than later-stage peers for the first time in more than a decade, citing PitchBook data showing $4.7 billion in seed-through-Series B cybersecurity deals through September. That already exceeds the full-year total for 2025, even as deal count fell.
He is skeptical of how much capital is being labeled as AI security. PitchBook counted 278 such deals in the first half of 2026, but Ward says Brightmind’s manual review found only 30 that he considered true AI security companies. He expects some founders to overplay the AI angle, while real winners will focus on practical, local models that protect systems in real time.
Among the names Ward points to are Empirical Security and older public companies he thinks may be vulnerable, including Qualys and Tenable. He also says Brightmind will put about 20% of its next fund into AI infrastructure rather than pure cybersecurity.
Building Brightmind like an operator, not a classic VC firm
Ward’s current team reflects his operating background. Brightmind has five people, including COO Iva Messy, principal Sven Wollschlaeger, CTO Jamie Mneimneh and chief of staff Taylor Cleveland. Mneimneh built the firm’s AWS-based testing environment and AI agents, which Ward says now source most of Brightmind’s deal flow and reduce the need for a large analyst staff.
Ward says about 40% of the first fund’s startups are based in Tel Aviv, and he expects a meaningful number of companies in the next fund to come from Israel as well. When it comes to founders, he says he prefers second-time operators who stay together as a team.
His own ambition, he says, remains tied to the same insecurity that shaped his childhood in northwest New Jersey, where money was tight and college was a stretch for his older brothers. He is aiming for a 3x net fund and says he is “not going to celebrate until we get that.”
That competitive streak still defines him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Ward said. “I have a level of being very naive to like, not being qualified to do something. I’ve just always looked at people and been like, ‘Okay, you know more than me today, but tomorrow, it’s going to be a little less, and the day after that, it’s going to be less, and eventually, I’m going to catch you and surpass you.’”
Source: Original report
Was this helpful?
Explore more: More Business & Startups Tech News Blog
Last Modified: November 8, 2026 at 10:32 pm
2 views
