Darktrace Raises $65 Million in Round Led By KKR

Darktrace, a cybersecurity startup that leverages machine learning and mathematics to detect threats, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $65 million from a group of investors led by private equity firm KKR.

Headquartered in Cambridge, UK and San Francisco, California, the company offers a threat detection platform platform based on the “biological principles” of the human immune system. The solution is offered as a physical or virtual appliance which creates a “pattern of life” for networks, devices and users to help determine what is “normal” in an enterprise.

By detecting anomalies, the system is able to identify threats lurking in networks in real time, including insider attacks, ransomware, machine-based attacks, and other unknown threats.

Founded in 2013 by senior members of the UK’s GCHQ and other intelligence agencies, Darktrace has raised more than $100 million in total funding to-date, including $18 million in March 2015 and $22.5 million in July 2015.

Darktrace said it would use the new injection of cash to accelerate the global roll-out of its security platform.

The company has grown to 300 employees in short time, and currently has more than 1,000 customer deployments. The company says that it has achieved more than 600% revenue growth in its latest financial year.

Early this year, Darktrace extended its threat detection technology to virtualized environments, including third-party cloud environments such as Amazon Web Services, Google’s Cloud Platform, Rackspace and Microsoft Azure.

In April 2015, the company launched a solution designed to detect threats within Industrial Control Systems (ICS) environments. The company said that its “Industrial Immune System” leverages Darktrace’s machine learning and mathematics in both operational technology (OT) and corporate environments to detect advanced cyberattacks and “subtle” insider threats targeting Industrial Control Systems, including SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) devices.

The new growth equity financing was led by KKR, with participation from existing investor Summit Partners, along with new investors TenEleven Ventures and SoftBank-affiliated SB ISAT Fund.