Threat detection and response solutions provider Vectra AI on Thursday announced that it has raised $130 million at a valuation of $1.2 billion, which makes the company the latest cybersecurity unicorn.
The funding, which brings the total raised by the firm to $350 million, was led by Blackstone Growth, with participation from existing investors. Vectra says it will use the money to improve its platform and expand into new markets and geographies.
Vectra offers threat detection solutions for cloud environments, data centers, IoT and other enterprise systems. It also provides products for threat hunting and conducting investigations, as well as for risk and compliance.
“Over the past year, we have witnessed a continuous series of the most impactful and widespread cyberattacks in history. To protect their employees and digital assets, our customers require security solutions that are smarter than today’s adversaries and provide coverage for cloud, data centers and SaaS applications,” said Hitesh Sheth, president and CEO at Vectra.
He added, “As we look to the future, Blackstone’s global presence, operational resources, and in-house technology expertise will help us achieve our mission to become one of the dominant cybersecurity companies in the world.”
More than a dozen cybersecurity companies have announced becoming a unicorn so far in 2021. Fraud prevention company Sift and DevSecOps firm Sysdig announced valuations exceeding $1 billion this week.
Some industry professionals have attributed this surge in unicorns to speculative strategies while others believe it’s a result of the growing importance of cybersecurity.
Related: Aqua Security Achieves Unicorn Status After $135 Million Funding Round
Related: Cybersecurity VC Funding Hit Record in 2020 With $7.8 Billion Invested
Related: Vectra Targets SOCs With Microsoft Defender ATP, Azure Sentinel Integration
Related: Attack Surface Growing for Healthcare Industry
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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