Before becoming a cybersecurity venture capitalist, Stephen Ward spent nine years in the Secret Service and about 18 months clearing his name after a hacker he had turned into an informant accused him of complicity. Now he is raising a second fund for Brightmind Partners, which he co-founded in 2024.
Ward says the hacker continued breaking the law while working as an informant. After the man was caught again, he accused Ward of being involved, and Ward—who had moved into the private sector—faced an investigation. The hacker was ultimately sentenced to 20 years. Audible later acquired the story rights and turned the episode into an eight-part podcast, “Operation Firewall.”
Ward’s career since leaving government included building a cybersecurity unit at J.P. Morgan, serving as CISO at TIAA for six years and spending two years at Home Depot from 2019. After quitting in 2021, he joined Insight Partners, where he worked on companies including Wiz, Abnormal Security and Elisity. He launched Brightmind with CrowdStrike corporate development executive Gur Talpaz in 2024; the firm raised a $250 million debut fund.
Talpaz and Brightmind’s third employee, Tayler Sipperly, left this spring. Ward cited “differences in opinions regarding operations and the future of Brightmind.” Talpaz and Sipperly later co-founded Cognition with CrowdStrike global CTO Elia Zaitsev. Sipperly said the pair continue to support Brightmind’s portfolio companies and limited partners and remain on several boards. Ward is now the firm’s sole general partner and is targeting roughly the same size for its second fund.
Brightmind’s first fund has made 14 investments. Its sole exit so far is identity security startup SGNL, which CrowdStrike agreed in January to acquire for $740 million, 11 months after Brightmind led its Series A. Ward argues cybersecurity founders should consider selling before a company races past the right opportunity. He says acquisitions often come when startups are between three and seven years old, and Brightmind studies what potential buyers are building or buying.
The fund’s next portfolio will include about 20% AI infrastructure investments, Ward said, with a meaningful number of teams expected from Israel; roughly 40% of the first fund’s startups are based in Tel Aviv. PitchBook recorded $4.7 billion in seed-through-Series B cybersecurity deals through September, ahead of the total for all of 2025, even as deal count fell to 248 from 358. The average seed round rose to $8.4 million in the first nine months of this year, from $5.54 million a year earlier. Ward also said his team’s review found only 30 genuine AI-security deals among 278 PitchBook categorized that way in the first half of 2026.
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