Trend Micro launches $100m fund to crack IoT security with its channel

Following the rise of the PC and cloud computing, IoT will represent a third "mega wave" for security, according to Trend founder Eva Chen

Trend Micro has launched a $100m investment fund designed to harness what it regards as the third "mega wave" of security - locking down the Internet of Things (IoT).

The corporate investment fund will see the Japanese security software vendor nurture start-ups working in the field of IoT and other growth markets.

Trend's channel is being pitched as integral to the project, with the start-ups involved promised access not only to financial backing and Trend's global threat intelligence, but also the vendor's 28,000 channel partners.

With 26 billion devices set to be connected to the internet by 2020, according to Gartner, the IoT represents the next frontier of security and the fund will help Trend capture growth in this area, its founder and CEO Eva Chen said.

"We have a 29-year history of successfully anticipating technology trends to secure all types of environments," she said.

"The first mega wave we caught was the growth of the PC marketplace; we committed early on to endpoint protection and remain a Leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms today. The second mega wave was all about the cloud; we made a bet early on to securing the cloud and so far we have secured over two billion workload hours on Amazon Web Services (AWS) alone. Now, we believe the next wave has arrived with IoT; our fund will help us harness this opportunity."

The fund, which has an initial investment of $100m, will "uncover insights into emerging ecosystem opportunities, disruptive business models, market gaps and skillset shortages", Trend said.

"These learnings will influence Trend Micro's cybersecurity solution planning across the company," it added.