Ionic Security Raises $9.4M From Kleiner Perkins To Help Companies Secure And Control Their Data In The Cloud

Ionic Security, a TechCrunch Disrupt SF Battlefield company that offers an enterprise security software, has raised $9.4 million in Series A1 funding led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers with TechOperators, Ken Levine and Dr. Paul Judge also participating. Ted Schlein, general partner at KPCB, will be joining Ionic Security’s board.

The company originally launched last Fall as Social Fortress, as a way for both consumers and enterprise users to simplify how they access and secure their important data, including emails, Yammer messages, photos, tweets, or status updates. The startup also allowed users to manage who gets to access to this data by encrypting everything.

Since last year, the startup shifted focus to the enterprise, and now, under the name Ionic Security, offers an end-to-end security, identity and access management platform for encrypted data in the cloud. And Ionic provides this without the need for, or use of, gateways. Users can centrally manage all employee login credentials for software apps plus internal applications.

As Kleiner Perkins partner Ted Schlein explains, there are a lot of companies working on access to cloud but no one ever put it together into a seamless system that addresses all aspects of cloud security and is endpoint agnostic.

The company’s software has seen interest from the defense industrial base and the healthcare and financial services industries in both North America and Europe.

“Security needs to change with the times,” says Schlein. “Enterprises have historically secured their data through network security, endpoint protections and central identity management offerings that are no match for the complex security challenges inherent in the combination of cloud services and the rise of bring-your-own-device policies. Ionic Security addresses this challenge head-on by providing enablement, not restriction and is poised to become standard in next-generation enterprise IT infrastructure.

The new funding will be used to expand Ionic’s engineering team, accelerate enterprise sales and for sales and marketing.