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The New Physics of Cyber
In this episode of In Progress, CEO Doug Merritt sits down with Eric McAlpine, Founder and CEO of Momentum Cyber, the cybersecurity industry's first dedicated investment bank. Eric shares how he built Momentum after stints at Citigroup and Blackstone, and what the firm's deal data reveals about a market moving faster than anyone predicted — from billion-dollar mega deals becoming routine to an AI security M&A category that went from nonexistent to white-hot in under two years. With 218 deals in the first half of this year and strategic acquirers racing to buy what they can't build fast enough, Eric maps the forces reshaping the landscape. The conversation turns to a fundamental problem: detection alone isn't closing the gap. Doug and Eric argue that the industry's default playbook — detect faster, patch faster — misses the point, and that security needs an architectural reset. They lay out three runtime control points where threats can actually be stopped in progress: identity, compute, and network. Eric closes with a prediction: follow the talent moving between hyperscalers and AI labs, and follow the capital behind them.
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The Speaker
Doug Merritt is Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of Aviatrix. Most recently, Doug served as Splunk President and CEO from 2015 to 2021. During his tenure as CEO, Doug led the transformation of Splunk from an on premise, perpetual license software company with the equivalent of $220 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), to a cloud-based SaaS company with ARR of $3.12 billion. In his first year at Splunk, Doug served as the Senior Vice President of Splunk’s go-to-market functions including sales, marketing, support, business development, partners, and other customer facing functions.
Doug Merritt
The Guest
Eric is the Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner of Momentum Cyber, and a seasoned M&A and strategic advisor with nearly three decades of experience counseling boards and CEOs. Before launching Momentum, he led the Security and Internet banking teams at Blackstone and Citi, where he closed transactions with some of the biggest names in tech — including HP, IBM, Google, Oracle, Amazon, Dell, and many others. He's also a two-time founder and a decorated military engineer.
Eric McAlpine
Key Summary
- AI security M&A is moving at unprecedented speed. A category that didn't exist two years ago jumped from 10 deals last year to a projected 50–60 by year-end, as companies like CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, and Akamai spend hundreds of millions to fill AI roadmap gaps.
- The mega deal era is accelerating. Cybersecurity M&A is on pace to exceed last year by 10%, yet most deal values remain undisclosed, making the market harder to read than it appears.
- Detection without prevention is a dead end. The industry excels at seeing threats but struggles to stop them. Investors are responding, backing prevention-oriented companies with outsized funding rounds.
- Security needs to go back to first principles. Three runtime control points — identity, compute/endpoint, and network — are the foundational layers where organizations can stop attacks in progress.
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