California-based internet performance and security firm Cloudflare on Tuesday announced that it raised $150 million in a new funding round led by Franklin Templeton.
This Series E funding round, which brings the total raised by Cloudflare to over $330 million, will be used by the company to support its growth, extend its range of products, and continue its international expansion into new markets.
Cloudflare previously raised $110 million in a Series D funding round announced in September 2015. The list of companies that have invested in Cloudflare includes New Enterprise Associates, Venrock, Union Square Ventures, Greenspring Associates, Pelion Venture Partners, CapitalG, Baidu, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Fidelity.
Cloudflare also announced on Tuesday that Maria Eitel, founder and co-chair of the Nike Foundation, and Stan Meresman, former CFO of Silicon Graphics, are joining its board of directors.
According to some reports, Cloudflare had been planning to go public in the first half of 2019 at a valuation of over $3.5 billion.
“An unmanaged vulnerability in an API or cloud application can expose data, misdirect the flow of money or disrupt the end user experience – which is why larger security companies are making application security the focal point of their portfolios,” commented Ivan Novikov, CEO of application security firm Wallarm. “This is evidenced by M&A activity in the application security space, including Cloudflare’s $150 funding round, Thoma Bravo’s acquisition of Imperva, Rapid7’s acquisition of tCell, as well as our own series A funding round.”
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