Illumio today secured $65 million in series E funding as the California-based cybersecurity startup seeks to push further into global markets. On the sidelines of the deal, the six-year-old company said it has appointed industry veteran Anup Singh as its chief financial officer and added John Hinshaw, formerly a top executive at Boeing, to its board of directors. The new round was led by clients advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Illumio said, without disclosing names. With over $332.5 million in funding secured to date (from J.P. Morgan Asset Management, BlackRock, and Andreessen Horowitz), Illumio is one of the top-funded cybersecurity startups globally. Illumio is also among a new generation of startups convincing companies to move away from perimeter defenses (which offer temporary protection) and upgrade to products that continuously monitor systems to detect breaches. And the startup has gained some traction — it counts Salesforce, Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas, and Oracle NetSuite among its customers. CEO and cofounder Andrew Rubin is now focused on taking Illumio to the next level. “With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to invest in scaling our global go-to-market, as well as the innovation of our platform,” he said. Specifically, the company will continue to expand its presence in the U.S., EMEA, and APAC regions, where Illumio claims to have seen a 50 percent increase in total global headcount in 2018. Illumio’s products operate on a micro-segmentation model, adding a software security layer around every computing instance (servers and containers). They provide organizations the “visibility of an MRI machine,” the company says. This also offers clients flexibility, so if they wish to change their server provider, for example, Illumio’s protection moves with them. “A key factor for any Zero Trust enterprise or strategy is to know what assets and controls are in place and to be able to understand, with context, what transactions and threats are critical to the business,” said Chase Cunningham, principal analyst serving security and risk professionals at Forrester. The appointment of Anup Singh as chief financial officer suggests Illumio might be exploring an IPO in the future. Singh previously held a similar position at public companies Anaplan and Nimble Storage, and at Clearwell Systems, which was acquired by Symantec. “I am looking forward to joining the team and to helping scale the company to the next level. Illumio has experienced significant growth, and I see an enormous market opportunity for us,” Singh said in a statement. Illumio competes with a number of cybersecurity companies, including Bromium and Tanium, both of which are funded by Andreessen Horowitz. Other rivals include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers-backed Shape Security and Ionic Security. The sector is hot right now, with cybersecurity startups raising $5.3 billion last year globally, up from $4.4 billion in 2017, according to Strategic Cyber Ventures. Sign up for to start your week with VB's top funding stories.
California-based cybersecurity start-up Illumio has announced $65m in series E funding to help its global expansion plans. The company said the funding was led by unnamed clients advised by Salesforce. The investment brought the company’s total backing to $332.5m. Illumio is helping firms to upgrade their security systems from those that monitored just perimeter defences to those providing continuous system monitoring. It said customers already included JPMorgan Asset Management, Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas and Oracle NetSuite. Future plans include expansion in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, together with the Asia-Pacific region.