Over the last few years, we’ve seen an increase in the number of high profile hacks and cyber attacks and, as a result, both government and enterprise finally began making security a priority and addressing it from the top down. As a result, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) has become one of the fastest growing sectors in the security market. AlienVault, a California and Madrid-based startup that provides unified management of critical security systems across networks, like threat detection, vulnerability assessment, and security intelligence, has been among those to benefit from the market growth. Its flagship product, the open-source OSSIM, is one of the most widely-deployed SIEM solutions on the market.
In January, the startup’s growth enabled it to steal seven senior security executives away from HP and secure $8 million in series B financing from Trident Capital and others. Today, the cyber security startup is adding another big chunk of change to its coffers, announcing that it has closed a $22.4 million series C round, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Sigma Partners.
Existing investors Trident Capital and Adara Venture Partners also contributed to the round, which brings AlienVault’s total funding to just under $35 million.
As a result of its series C raise, KPCB managing partner Ted Schlein will be joining the startup’s board. Schlein is a veteran investor in the security space, having backed Fortify Software and ArcSight (both bought by HP), ISS, Mandiant, Shape, and others. The KPCB Managing Director joins a board that includes former Fortify CEO John Jack as well as the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace.
With high-ranking generals (literally) on board and a new HP executive team, AlienVault clearly isn’t messing around and will be using its new capital to expand sales, marketing and R&D to position itself as one of the chief players in the global market. Which, by the way, is growing fast as demand increases for cost-effective unified security management solutions. Investment banking and asset management firm William Blair & Co. estimates that the SIEM market is growing at 21.9 percent CAGR and is on track to surpass $2.3 billion by 2014.
Since we caught up with the AlienVault team in January, the startup has added 60 new customers and is now working with over 300 companies and governments, including Telefonica, Metro Madrid, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, and the city of Los Angeles.
AlienVault CEO Barmak Meftah tells us that the startup doubled revenue in the first half of 2012, thanks to a 50 percent-plus upsell rate for its existing customers. The startup has also attracted attention after creating what it believes to be the largest community-sourced threat intelligence feed and database, the AlienVault Open Threat Exchange, which automatically aggregates and publishes threat data streaming in from a range of security devices, like firewalls, proxy servers, web servers, anti-virus systems, etc.
Find AlienVault at home here.
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