Poppy Gustafsson runs a cutting-edge and gender-diverse cybersecurity firm on the brink of a £3bn stock market debut, but she is happy to reference pop culture classic the Terminator to help describe what Darktrace actually does. Launched in Cambridge eight years ago by an unlikely alliance of mathematicians, former spies from GCHQ and the US and artificial intelligence (AI) experts, Darktrace provides protection, enabling businesses to stay one step ahead of increasingly smarter and dangerous hackers and viruses. Marketing its products as the digital equivalent of the human body's ability to fight illness, Darktrace's AI-security works as an "enterprise immune system", can "self-learn and self-heal" and has an "autonomous response capability" to tackle threats without instruction as they are detected. "It really does feel like we're in this new era of cybersecurity," says Gustafsson, the chief executive of Darktrace. "The arms race will absolutely continue, I really don't think it's very long until this [AI] innovation gets into the hands of attackers, and we will see these very highly targeted and specific attacks that humans won't necessarily be able to spot and defend themselves from. "It's not going to be these futuristic Terminator-style robots out shooting each other, it's going to be all these little pieces of code fighting in the background of our businesses.

Darktrace has become a rarity in the British tech scene: a Unicorn. The cybersecurity company, which provides what it calls a network "immune system" powered by artificial intelligence, hit a $1.25 billion valuation last month, two sources close to the deal told Forbes. The new valuation came after a secondary round of financing in which former investors sold off their stakes. Vitruvian Partners, sources said, is the acquirer of the stock. How did Darktrace find itself at the vaunted Unicorn status?