Category Archives: venture capital

“Rent tech” focused RET closes first fund; pours $5M into management platform SmartRent

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Today, Real Estate Technology Ventures (RET) Ventures announced the final close of $108 million for its first fund.  RET focuses on early-stage investments in companies that are primarily looking to disrupt the North American multifamily rental industry, with the firm boasting a roster of LPs made up of some of the largest property owners and […] Continue reading “Rent tech” focused RET closes first fund; pours $5M into management platform SmartRent→

Retail-as-a-service provider Leap raises $3M and launches first store

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The past decade in retail has been the golden age of direct-to-consumer (D2C) and digitally native vertical brands (DNVBs) that use the internet to communicate with customers, execute transactions, handle distribution and offer better economics. But as small independent startups have scaled into unicorn territory and as countless brands have saturated digital channels, customer acquisition has […] Continue reading Retail-as-a-service provider Leap raises $3M and launches first store→

INKY emerges from stealth with email spoofing, phishing protection service

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INKY, a startup that provides protection against email spoofing and phishing services, emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday and announced its “INKY Phish Fence” product. The product helps organizations detect spoofing attempts whereby attackers hijack a domain to pose as a credible entity. It also uses “anomaly detection algorithms” to warn employees of suspicious emails and detect spearpshing and extortion attempts. Based in Rockville, Maryland, INKY has raised about $5.8 million in venture capital funding, according to Crunchbase, including a $5.6 million Series A round backed by ClearSky Security, Gula Tech Adventures and Blackstone. “There is an obvious lack of innovation around detecting and preventing today’s sophisticated phishing attacks. With the launch of INKY Phish Fence, enterprises will now be able to detect and prevent against the industry’s most common, yet formidable vectors,” said Ron Gula, founder of Gula Tech Adventures, in a press release. “Investing in this space is […]

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Arctic Wolf Networks raises $45 million for cloud SOC platform

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Arctic Wolf Networks, a company that sells a “SOC-as-a-service” platform, announced on Thursday that it raised $45 million Series C funding. The company provides a cloud-based security operations center (SOC), which gives customers access to Arctic Wolf’s AI-dirven threat detection platform as well as its “Concierge Security Engineers.” The offering is meant to give customers threat detection capabilities without having to built their own on-premise SOC. Arctic Wolf argues that this approach is more economical given the shortage of cybersecurity skills and “cost-prohibitive nature” for building a SOC from scratch. CEO and co-founder Brian NeSmith said in a press release that the new funding will go toward further developing Arctic Wolf’s vulnerability assessment and endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities. “Our growing team of security engineers is redefining the economics of security to protect companies of all sizes,” NeSmith said in a press release. “In addition to supporting continued company […]

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WhiteSource raises $35 million for open source flaw detection platform

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WhiteSource, a company that provides cybersecurity services to users of open source software, announced Wednesday that it raised $35 million in Series C funding. The company’s platform draws from a database of open source repositories and alerts customers if they are using components that have unpatched bugs. “We are now at a stage where the question is not whether or not to use open source components, but how to put in place the solutions and policies to manage them well,” said WhiteSource CEO and co-founder Rami Sass, in a press release. Sass pointed to Equifax’s massive data breach last year as evidence for the need for automated open source bug monitoring services like WhiteSource’s. Equifax’s breach of about 148 million people’s personal data was reportedly caused by an unpatched version of Apache Struts, an open source web application framework. “[A]s the open source community grows, and the number of reported vulnerabilities […]

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Shasta Ventures is doubling down on security startups with 3 new hires

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Shasta has hired former Symantec GM Balaji Yelamanchili, former Salesforce CISO Izak Mutlu and longtime enterprise software exec Drew Harman to focus on security. Continue reading Shasta Ventures is doubling down on security startups with 3 new hires→

Randori enters automated red-teaming scene with $9.75 million seed investment

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“Nation-state” hacking is a phrase often used to talk about the the scariest cyberthreats out there, but cybersecurity startup Randori is using it to market its platform. The company announced on Thursday that it secured $9.75 million in seed funding for its automated red-teaming services. The Boston-based company says that its platform lets customers launch “nation-state caliber” attacks on their own systems in order to assess their risks and vulnerabilities. Randori stresses that its platform carries out real attacks, not ones in simulated environments, in combination with “continuous reconnaissance.” “Despite massive investments of time and capital, organizations often don’t know where they’re vulnerable until after they’re hit. Simulated environments can’t account for the changing tactics of today’s attacker,” said CEO Brian Hazzard in a press release. Hazzard is a former vice president and founding employee of Carbon Black, an endpoint security company that went public earlier this year. Randori company […]

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Tanium claims $6.5 billion valuation with $200 million investment

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Endpoint security company Tanium announced Tuesday that it earned $200 million in investor funding, claiming a valuation of $6.5 billion. That figure is compared to a reported $5 billion valuation just five months ago when the company brought in a $175 million investment. Founded in 2007, Tanium is easily one of the most well funded privately owned cybersecurity companies in the U.S. The company claims it’s had great success throughout 2018, with cash flow, billings and revenue on a growth trend, despite rapid expansion. In the endpoint security space, Tanium competes with other big and growing players like Crowdstrike, Carbon Black, Cylance and others. Observers have expected Tanium to go public, and CEO Orion Hindawi has hinted at such a move. However, Reuters reported that the company has not made any decisions. The round was led by Wellington Management, with participation from Baillie Gifford & Company and Adage Capital Management. “We are thrilled […]

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