Cyber security firm Darktrace have raised USD 50 million in funding to bring the valuation of the company to USD 1.65 billion. With this cash infusion, Darktrace aims to expand the cyber security firm’s global presence in a bid to protect the networks of enterprise customers from the rising threat of virus and malware attacks.
According to Darktrace, enterprises deploying their workload on to the cloud need to secure their environments given the increasing number of cyber assaults. They claim that these assaults find different ways of entering the environment only to affect the sensitive data.
By raising USD 50 million in funding, Darktrace claim that they will use the assets to expand their international presence, strengthen their portfolio and beef up their cybersecurity team. They also say that Darktrace will better their artificial intelligence product Antigena, that automatically detect threats in the customer’s networks within seconds.
The cyber security firm say that the new investment into the business came mainly from London-headquartered private equity firm Vitruvian Partners, followed by KKR (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.) and 1011 Ventures. Speaking about the investment, Poppy Gustafsson, co-CEO at Darktrace, commented:
They have got a really good record investing in high-innovation firms, especially in high-growth markets. So given our objective, which is we have to increase our global footprint and expand into those different regions, that’s something they were able to support us with.
Darktrace claim that they are prioritizing growth over profitability since the demand in the global market for cyber security products is high. They also say that their current investors back this vision and believe that reaching and acquiring new customers in different markets should be the top priority.
Gustafsson continued:
We could switch off that growth and we would be profitable, but we’re in a fortunate position where our investors are backing us to continue to expand and really reach that demand.
Industry analysts claim that the global cyber security market is taking an interesting turn after this cash infusion as well as the one received by Lacework to boost their cloud security offerings.