ThreatStream, a SaaS-based cybersecurity startup backed by top Cloudera executives, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from investors led by Google Ventures. The other investors participating in the latest round of funding are Paladin Capital Group, Cloudera CEO Tom Reilly and Hugh Nijemanze, former CTO and founder of ArcSight.
The new funding will be used to add a new layer of cybersecurity for enterprise and government customers, the startup said.
Over past few months, we have seen several security startups getting launched with some of them coming out of stealth mode after readying their products. The increasing number of these niche security startups also underscores a growing market for solutions that help enterprises and governments secure their data and networks in realtime.
“ThreatStream’s Optic platform is the first ever crowd-sourced cyber security intelligence solution that aggregates millions of threat indicators from around the Internet and integrates them directly to an organization’s existing security infrastructure,” said Greg Martin, CEO and founder of the startup. Founded in 2013, the startup had raised $300,000 in seed funding last year.
“By leveraging data and analytics, Optic helps organizations sort through much of the “noise,” allowing security analysts to focus on the more sophisticated, 20% of attacks, the targeted ones,” Martin added.
ThreatStream uses data science to identify potential threats and targets in real time and helps existing enterprise security to defend.
Google Ventures general partner Karim Faris said the startup addresses a critical gap in threat intelligence.
“Traditional models of securing the gate are becoming less effective, and we’re seeing meaningful new investments in creating more intelligent security layers. In today’s environment, it’s imperative to continuously augment existing perimeter defenses like firewalls with threat intelligence to get a broader view of the attacks forming,” Karim said.
The cybersecurity threats have been rising at an alarming rate over past few years. The Target data breach that was traced back to a piece of malware called “Kaptoxa”, developed by a Russian teenager, was actually running on hundreds of point-of-sale machines at the retailer. ThreatStream believes such instances could be easily managed in realtime through threat intelligence.