Funding Files: Cyber security, AI and cloud deal roundup, CIOSEA News, ETCIO SEA
Here’s a quick look at some of the funding deals and acquisitions that transpired in March in the cloud, data, cybersecurity, and AI space.
The third month of the year also saw its fair share of investments in cloud, data, cyber, and AI startups. Both fundings and acquisitions took place in healthy numbers. One of the biggest funding rounds was announced by cybersecurity startup Axonius that raised $200 million in funding from returning investors at a $2.6 billion valuation. In other news, Amazon is pouring an additional $2.75 billion into Anthropic, bringing its total investment in the artificial intelligence startup to $4 billion.Meanwhile in acquisitions, CrowdStrike announced it has agreed to acquire Flow Security, the industry’s first and only cloud data runtime security solution. In other news, Zendesk announced the acquisition of Ultimate, an industry-leading provider of service automation, to deliver the most complete AI offering for customer experience (CX) in the market.
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Here’s a quick look at some of the funding deals and acquisitions that transpired in March in the cloud, data, and AI space.
Fundings/ Investments
Silence Laboratories raises $4.1 Mn in funding to enable privacy preserving collaborative computing
Silence Laboratories is on a mission to create infrastructure to enable complex data collaborations between enterprises and entities, without any sensitive information being exposed to the other engaging parties. Silence Laboratories announced it has raised an additional $4.1 million funding round led by Pi Ventures and Kira Studio, along with several prominent angel investors. The funding will be used to scale the company’s tech & business teams and enrich the company’s robust R&D pipeline.
Cybersecurity platform CHEQUER Inc. (QueryPie) raises funding
CHEQUER Inc., a leading B2B SaaS cyber security platform startup, announced that it has closed an investment round, positioning the company for accelerated expansion in the global market and innovation in the cloud native security platform sector. The round was co-led by Salesforce Ventures and Z Venture Capital (ZVC), bringing the cumulative investment in CHEQUER Inc. so far – including the seed round in 2021 – to $24.82 million.
Mews raises $110 Mn in funding to accelerate cloud technology in hospitality
Mews, the industry-leading hospitality cloud, has announced that it is raising fresh funding of $110m. The round is led by existing investor Kinnevik, alongside Revaia, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Notion Capital and new investor LGVP. The new funding values the company at $1.2bn. The funding will see Mews prioritise its global expansion, research and development, and acquisitions, enabling the world’s most innovative hospitality organisations to accelerate their digital transformation.
Cybersecurity startup Axonius raises $200 million in funding from returning investors
Axonius, a startup which helps companies manage their cybersecurity infrastructure, has raised $200 million at a $2.6 billion valuation, a sizable funding amount in a relatively muted market for growth and late-stage startups. Founded in New York City in 2017, Axonius’ software helps IT and security teams manage their IT environments, including devices, users, software and cloud services, so they can mitigate threats and manage security risks.
Sweet Security raises $33 Mn in Series A funding
Six months after coming out of stealth, Sweet Security announced a $33 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, joined by Munich Re Ventures and Glilot Capital Partners. Capitalising on its strong market traction, Sweet, which leverages deep runtime analysis to better identify and address cloud risks, will use the funding to scale up its operations in the U.S. and expand its platform.
Cyber-physical systems security firm Claroty raises $100 Mn in funding
Claroty, the cyber-physical systems protection company, announced it has secured $100 million in strategic growth financing. Participants include lead equity investor Delta-v Capital, as well as AB Private Credit Investors at AllianceBernstein, Standard Investments, Toshiba Digital Solutions, SE Ventures, Rockwell Automation, and Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank. The funds will be used to scale Claroty’s platform approach to cyber-physical systems (CPS) protection across key verticals including the public sector and heavily regulated critical infrastructure industries, expand in emerging regions across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific, and fuel research and development.
Reach Security raises $20 Mn in funding
Reach Security, the company pioneering advanced AI to reinvent security operations, announced $20 million in funding. The Series A is led by Ballistic Ventures, with participation from Artisanal Ventures and industry luminaries, including Mark McLaughlin, former CEO and President of Palo Alto Networks, and Denise Persson, CMO of Snowflake. Existing backers Webb Investment Network, Ridge Ventures, and TechOperators also joined the round.
Defense Unicorns raises $35 Mn in Series A funding
Defense Unicorns, a software startup providing open source software and AI capabilities for National Security systems, announced it has raised a $35 million Series A funding round led by Sapphire Ventures and Ansa Capital. In the coming year, the company will use this initial round of funding to enhance and expand its mission-focused capabilities.
Nanonets raises $29Mn funding to create autonomous AI agent for back office operations
Nanonets, a leading AI-based workflow automation platform, raised $29 million in a Series B funding round led by Accel. The funding round also saw participation from existing investors Elevation Capital, YCombinator and others. This takes the total funding raised till date to $42M.
Nozomi Networks raises $100 Mn in funding to defend critical infrastructure from cyber threats
Nozomi Networks Inc., the worldwide leader in OT and IoT security, announced a $100 million Series E funding round to help accelerate innovative cyber defenses and expand cost-efficient go-to-market expansion globally. This latest round includes investments from Mitsubishi Electric, a global leader in digital manufacturing, electronics and electrical equipment and Schneider Electric, a global leader in digital automation and energy management. They join a growing list of OT original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who have invested in Nozomi Networks, including previous investors Honeywell and Johnson Controls.
Together AI valued at $1.25 bln in Salesforce-led funding round of $106 Mn
Nvidia-backed Together AI raised $106 million in a new funding round, doubling its valuation since last fall as investors rushed to back startups capitalising on the generative AI boom. Led by Salesforce Ventures, the funding valued Together AI at $1.25 billion. Other investors in the round included Coatue Management and existing investors such as Lux Capital and Emergence Capital.
WarpStream Labs raises $20 Mn to modernise data streaming
WarpStream Labs, the cloud native data streaming infrastructure company, announced it raised $20M in funding led by Greylock and Amplify Partners. Angel investors in the round include Ben Sigelman (CEO of Lightstep), Spencer Kimball (CEO of CockroachDB), and Barry McCardel (CEO of Hex Technologies). The company will use the funds to hire more engineers, scale their go to market team, and invest in new product lines.
Data security firm BigID closes $60 Mn in funding
BigID, the pioneer in AI-augmented data security, compliance and privacy for modern cloud-first enterprises, announced that it closed a $60 million growth round led by Riverwood Capital with participation by Silver Lake Waterman and Advent. With this latest funding, BigID aims to accelerate both organic and inorganic expansion in AI data security and compliance.
CyberSaint raises $21M in Series A funding
CyberSaint, the leader in cyber risk management, announced the company has raised $21M in Series A funding led by Riverside Acceleration Capital (RAC). Additional participating investors include Sage Hill Investors, Audeo Capital, and BlueIO. The funding will build on customer momentum, accelerate market expansion, and continue the innovation of CyberSaint’s CyberStrong platform powered by its patented Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.
Security data movement company Tarsal raises $6 Mn in funding, names new CTO
Tarsal, the security data movement company, announced the close of its $6 million seed round of funding and the appointment of cybersecurity veteran Barrett Lyon as chief technology officer (CTO). The funding round was led by Harpoon Ventures and Mango Capital, with contributions from Y Combinator, Abstract Ventures, and Backend Capital.
Foundry raises $80 Million in Seed and Series A funding
Foundry, a new breed of public cloud for AI/ML workloads, announced $80M in seed and Series A funding to orchestrate the world’s compute capacity, rendering it universally accessible and useful. The round was co-led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Redpoint, Microsoft Ventures (M12), Conviction, NEA, and other leading technical and commercial minds from the industry.
Dymium emerges out of stealth with $7M in funding
Dymium, a data access management company that enables organisations to bring “data access to where data lives,” emerged from stealth with $7 million in funding, led by $5 million from Two Bear Capital and $2 million from angel investors. Dymium was founded on the premise that data should be accessed only when it’s needed, in the right context and format in real-time without the burden of managing yet another data environment or being susceptible to risk like ransomware.
Finite State raises $20 Mn in funding to secure critical infrastructure and software supply chains
Finite State, the leader in comprehensive software risk management for the connected world, announced that it raised a $20 million growth round led by Energy Impact Partners (EIP). This investment underscores Finite State’s pivotal role in addressing critical cybersecurity challenges faced by organisations worldwide and its commitment to advancing innovative solutions for securing connected devices and critical infrastructure.
BlueFlag Security emerges from stealth with $11.5M seed funding
BlueFlag Security announced a $11.5 million seed funding round to redefine software development lifecycle (SDLC) security. Led by Maverick Ventures and Ten Eleven Ventures with participation from Pier 88 Investment Partners, the investment will fund the development of BlueFlag’s SDLC security and governance platform, which delivers end-to-end, identity-centric protection across the development lifecycle from code to production.
iKala raises over $20 Mn in Series B+ funding, led by Chunghwa Telecom
iKala announced the successful completion of its Series B+ funding round, led by Chunghwa Telecom. The total raised amount is $20.8 million (approximately NT$660 million), pushing iKala’s total fundraising to over $50 million (approximately NT$1.55 billion). Existing investors include Wistron Digital Technology Holding, Huitung Investments, Honesty Ventures, and Cherubic Venture. This funding will boost iKala’s AI research and development and enhance its footprint in Japan and Southeast Asia, establishing itself as Asia’s premier AI transformation solution provider.
Software supply chain security firm Binarly raises $10.5 Mn funding
Binarly, provider of an industry leading AI-powered firmware and software supply chain security platform, announced the closing of a $10.5 million seed funding round. The oversubscribed round was led by Two Bear Capital, with participation from Blu Ventures, Canaan Partners, Cisco Investments, and Liquid 2 Ventures. Pre-seed investors Westwave Capital and Acrobator Ventures also expanded their equity positions. Binarly will use the investment to further expand its world-class engineering team, and scale enterprise and device manufacturer adoption of its technologies.
SaaS observability company Observe raises $115 Million in Series B funding
Observe, Inc. the SaaS observability company reinventing the way machine-generated data is stored, managed and analysed, announced the company has closed a Series B funding round of $115 million led by Sutter Hill Ventures with participation from existing investors Capital One Ventures and Madrona and new investor Snowflake Ventures. Observe plans to expand its market presence in North America over the coming year and expects to continue to more than double the size of its business.
Amazon pours an additional $2.75 billion into AI startup Anthropic
Amazon is pouring an additional $2.75 billion into Anthropic, bringing its total investment in the artificial intelligence startup to $4 billion. Amazon will maintain a minority stake in San Francisco-based Anthropic, a rival of ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
Coro secures $100 Million funding to transform cybersecurity for SMEs
Coro, the leading cybersecurity platform purpose-built for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), announced it has secured $100 million in Series D funding led by One Peak, with participation from existing investors Energy Impact Partners and Balderton Capital. This funding round brings the total funds raised to $255 million in the last 24 months. The new investment will reinforce Coro’s market dominance and accelerate its mission to empower SMEs and their service providers with enterprise-grade cybersecurity that’s accessible to all.
Mergers/ Acquisitions
GSTechnologies completes acquisition of Semnet
GSTechnologies Limited , the fintech company, announced that, further to the company’s announcement on 6 December 2023, it has completed the acquisition of 66.67% of the issued share capital of Semnet Pte Ltd, a cybersecurity company based in Singapore. Semnet is a profitable cybersecurity business that will provide GSTechnologies with expertise and licences that the Directors believe are a critical component to the advancement of the company’s GS Money and B2B Neobanking operations.
CrowdStrike to acquire Flow Security
CrowdStrike today announced it has agreed to acquire Flow Security, the industry’s first and only cloud data runtime security solution. With this acquisition, CrowdStrike is setting the standard for modern cloud security with comprehensive real-time data protection spanning endpoint and cloud environments, delivering the only cloud data protection platform that secures data in all states, both at rest and in motion.
Cloudflare acquires Nefeli Networks to enter multicloud networking
To accelerate its entrance into the new market, Cloudflare acquired the technology of Nefeli Networks – a multicloud networking (MCN) startup focused on reducing the complexity of IT and DevOps teams by providing a unified network management layer for cloud infrastructure deployments. By integrating Nefeli’s technology with Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud, Cloudflare now combines cloud network orchestration with the scale of a global network in a unified platform – uniquely positioning Cloudflare to help businesses to discover, connect, and protect any private or public cloud environment seamlessly, while also further helping avoid public cloud lock-in.
Zendesk to acquire service automation firm Ultimate
Zendesk announced it will acquire Ultimate, an industry-leading provider of service automation, to deliver the most complete AI offering for customer experience (CX) in the market. As unprecedented demand for AI drives up the speed and frequency of customer engagement, AI agents push beyond traditional bot capabilities to help brands transform CX into a competitive advantage. With Ultimate, Zendesk will offer AI agents with enhanced intelligence that are not just reactive, but proactive problem solvers, complementing human expertise.
Zscaler acquires Avalor
Zscaler, Inc., the leader in cloud security, announced another major leap forward in artificial intelligence (AI) innovations that extends the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange™ data, from more than 400 billion daily Zscaler transactions with Avalor’s Data Fabric for Security with over 150 pre-built integrations enabling customers to proactively identify and predict critical vulnerabilities as well as improve operational efficiencies. By leveraging its massive data foundation, Zscaler is poised to transform the AI capabilities for the cybersecurity industry to not only enable organisations to mitigate risks and optimize performance but also pave the way for zero-touch operations.
Australia’s AUCloud announces $30 Mn of acquisitions to boost cyber security and cloud offerings
Australia’s cyber security and secure cloud provider, AUCloud, announced that it has entered into binding agreements to acquire three strategically aligned businesses. AUCloud has entered into binding agreements for the acquisition of: PCG Cyber – a cyber security consultancy firm specialising in Australian Government security advice and operations; Venn IT – a Queensland and South Australia based MSP and professional consulting business, data resilience & backup protection specialist servicing customers in the mining, financial services, education, and distribution sectors; and Arado – a suite of cloud and managed services, with a strong presence in Queensland.
Airbus to acquire Infodas and strengthen its cybersecurity portfolio
Airbus Defence and Space has entered into an agreement to acquire Infodas, a Cologne-based, German company that provides cybersecurity and IT solutions in the public sector including for defence and critical infrastructures. The transaction is subject to the customary regulatory approvals and is expected to be finalised before the end of 2024.
Exclusive Networks announces a major step in its APAC growth strategy with NEXTGEN Group acquisition
Exclusive Networks, a global leader in cybersecurity, announced the signature of a binding agreement for the acquisition of 100% of the share capital of NEXTGEN Group, a leading hyper-growth channel services company focused on cybersecurity, data resiliency and digital enterprise in Australia and New Zealand with presence across APAC. The combination of NEXTGEN and Exclusive Networks will offer unique end-to-end value-added channel management services, supported by real-time data analytics and AI-backed insights, benefiting the entire APAC region and providing Exclusive Networks with the ability to roll-out digital channel services at a global scale.