The Newest Cybersecurity Unicorn That Raised $300M

It’s no surprise that in today’s age of growing cybercrime, venture capitalists and corporate customers are flocking to cybersecurity investments.

Endpoint security and systems management company Tanium is among the many cybersecurity startups that have seen a boost in funding due to the rising number of data breaches, which have quickly transformed into a threatening force hitting companies all over the globe and leaving devastating results in their wake.

Tanium is what many consider an “alpha unicorn” in the cybersecurity market, with a source close to the company’s latest funding round confirming investors now value the business at $3.5 billion, Fortune reported yesterday (Sept. 29).

Last week the company’s founders reportedly accepted an additional $30 million from Franklin Templeton and Geodesic Partners, with the final round totaling $147.5 million, Fortune said.

Since Tanium started in 2007, it has raised $301.5 million in capital from its investors.

The California-based billion dollar startup initially started as an IT platform but now offers the ability to detect and neutralize enterprise cybersecurity threats 10,000 times faster than other endpoint tools in the market, the company said.

Industry leaders like Visa, Target, Best Buy and Kaiser Permanente all rely on Tanium’s 15-second visibility and control over millions of endpoints.

According to Fortune, Tanium has contracts with 50 of the Fortune 100 companies, which includes half of the top U.S. financial institutions and four of the top 10 retailers, with some of its larger accounts involving the management of more than 500,000 devices.

As of March, when the company announced its last funding milestone, it said it ended 2014 debt-free, cash flow positive and with total cash in excess of $100 million.

Tanium also stated the number of its transactions over $1 million grew by 800 percent, while the number of transactions over $5 million increased to 300 percent year over year.

Firms seeking to stop the looming and expanding hacking issues have collectively raised over $1 billion in venture funding to lock those hackers out, PYMNTS reported earlier this year.

In Q1 2015, security startups backed by big name VCs, like Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner, captured exactly $1.02 billion — almost doubling the $540 million brought in at the same time last year. In total, 2014 saw $2.3 billion flow into security startups. In 2010–2011, that sum was less than $1 billion.

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