British cyber-security firm Darktrace secures $18 mln funding

LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - Darktrace, a British cyber-security firm backed by former Autonomy boss Mike Lynch, said on Wednesday it had raised $18 million from venture capitalists to expand in Asia Pacific.

Investors Talis Capital and Hoxton Ventures joined Lynch's Invoke Capital in a funding round that values the company at $80 million, it said.

Darktrace uses advanced machine learning and mathematics developed at the University of Cambridge to identify abnormalities in a company's IT network that might be an attack.

Chief Executive Nicole Eagan said Darktrace's software was being used by 75 companies barely a year since it was adopted by its first customer. "Our headcount has tripled over the past year and expansion into Asia is a natural next step," she said.

Lynch established Invoke Capital after he left Hewlett-Packard Co in 2012 in an acrimonious split over the $11 billion acquisition of Autonomy by the U.S. company less than a year earlier. (Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Pravin Char)