companies

Darktrace

Self-learning AI platform that models normal network, cloud, email, and identity behavior to detect and autonomously respond to unknown threats.

Darktrace was founded in 2013 in Cambridge, UK by mathematicians and cyber defense specialists — including Poppy Gustafsson, Jack Stockdale, and Dave Palmer — working out of Mike Lynch's Invoke Capital, with technology inspired by the immune system's ability to recognize what's foreign without prior exposure to it. Rather than matching traffic against known attack signatures, its unsupervised machine learning builds a continuously updating model of 'normal' for every user, device, and network segment, then flags and can autonomously act on deviations in real time. The company listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2021 at roughly a £2.5 billion valuation, then was taken private in a $5.3 billion acquisition by Thoma Bravo that completed in October 2024. It remains headquartered in Cambridge with operations across more than 24 countries, and named Ed Jennings, former CEO of Quickbase, as its chief executive in March 2026. The ActiveAI Security Platform now spans network, email, cloud, identity, and operational technology through modules branded DETECT, RESPOND, PREVENT, and HEAL.

Founded

2013

Headquarters

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Sector

applications