Illumio, the pioneer and leader of Zero Trust Segmentation, has announced a $225 million Series F funding round at a $2.75 billion valuation.
The round is led by Thoma Bravo and is also supported by Franklin Templeton, funds managed by Hamilton Lane, and Owl Rock, a division of Blue Owl Capital.
What prompted Illumio’s Series F funding round?
Cyberattacks and ransomware are more successful nowadays than ever before.
We are witnessing the most catastrophic breaches in history on a regular basis, despite security spending that is expected to top $150 billion this year.
Colonial Pipeline, JBS, Microsoft Exchange and other ransomware payouts prove that legacy security does not provide adequate protection, and the entire security model is in question.
A Zero Trust strategy is the new model, designed to assume breach at all times.
While no single product or platform equals a complete Zero Trust approach, segmentation is a core pillar of every Zero Trust strategy. Illumio pioneered Zero Trust Segmentation, and the company’s SaaS platform makes it easy to deliver automated enforcement in minutes.
Illumio is dramatically reducing risk by stopping successful cyber attacks and ransomware from moving to other applications, clouds, containers, data centers, and endpoints.
Many Fortune 100 companies and global enterprises use Illumio. They include 3 top enterprise SaaS companies, 5 leading insurance companies, and 6 of the 10 biggest banks globally.
“Adopting Zero Trust strategies has never been more important for organisations across all industries, as the Biden Administration’s recent cybersecurity Executive Order demonstrates.”
“This investment signals that now is the time to re-imagine the cyber security model as we know it, with Zero Trust Segmentation playing a fundamental role in this strategic shift.”
“With this funding, we will accelerate our innovation in product and engineering, invest in customer success, and build upon our global partner strategy,” said Illumio CEO Andrew Rubin.
Illumio provides fast, simple, cloud-native Zero Trust Segmentation.
Illumio Core and Illumio Edge make it easy to segment hybrid, multi-cloud estates and secures workloads at any scale, from 100 to 100,000+ workloads, delivering intelligent visibility, a radically simple policy creation engine, automated segmentation and enforcement in minutes.
Illumio’s unique approach to stopping the spread of cyber disasters has fueled the fastest period of growth in company history.
Illumio’s highlights include
- Being named as a Leader in Zero Trust platforms by Forrester Research in The Forrester Wave™: Zero Trust eXtended (ZTX) Ecosystem Platform Providers, Q3 2020 report
- Closing the strongest quarter (Q4 for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021) in company history and highest number of new customers in a fiscal year
- Achieving international annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth of more than 100 percent
- Gaining significant traction in the Illumio federal business including the recent win of a U.S. Air Force SBIR Award
“As the volume and sophistication of cyberattacks increases, Zero Trust Segmentation is set for a breakthrough moment, and Illumio is the clear market leader.”
“Illumio plays a critical role in protecting some of the largest organisations and is well-positioned to build upon its growth with continued sales momentum and product innovation.”
“We look forward to partnering with the talented Illumio team and leveraging Thoma Bravo’s significant security and operational expertise as we embark on an initiative to invest in hyper growth software and technology companies,” said Robert (Tre) Sayle, a partner at Thoma Bravo.
What will this funding round mean for Illumio’s partners?
“This funding will be a game-changer for our partners,” said Illumio CEO, Andrew Rubin.
“We plan to make a significant investment in our channel partner network and systems integrator partners not just in the U.S.A., but around the world as well.”
“As customer demand for a managed service around Zero Trust Segmentation skyrockets, Illumio is investing in product innovations to run better in an MSSPs internal environment.”
“Illumio expects to source most of its business through the channel and is currently in the process of enhancing products to make them more operationally friendly for MSSPs.”
“Channel partnerships have always been key to Illumio’s growth, and our partners will continue to be an important focus as we accelerate our go-to-market strategy,” said Andrew Rubin.
Illumio plan to build on its global partner strategy
“When we first entered the market, we focused primarily on customers in the U.S. Now, enterprises use Illumio across the globe,” said Andrew Rubin.
“As we expand our internal team across EMEA and APAC, we plan to leverage the channel to support more international customers in Japan, the Middle East, and other regions.”
“After all, cybersecurity is a global crisis — when the Colonial Pipeline was breached in the U.S., ransomware attacks around the world continued.”
“In May, DarkSide also attacked a European unit of Japanese tech giant Tobisha, compromising over 740 GB of data that included passport information.”
“Ransomware will remain a global issue, so it’s our job to ensure that Zero Trust Segmentation extends to the endpoint as well. Global partners will be crucial in helping us achieve greater cybersecurity resilience worldwide.”
Funding round gives Illumio a competitive advantage
“Recent catastrophic ransomware attacks (JBS, Colonial Pipeline, Microsoft Exchange, SolarWinds) made it clear that the security model is broken.”
“Breaches happen and we need to be more resilient when they do. Now, with President Biden’s Executive Order, Zero Trust Segmentation has been made a key pillar in mitigating these types of breaches, and boosting cyber resilience.”
“Today, a company’s competitive edge is based on having an “assume breach” mentality. Hope is no longer a strategy.”
“A Zero Trust Segmentation approach not only provides a competitive advantage, but is also crucial in protecting critical data and infrastructure.”
“For the first time, we’re watching breaches have a physical, real-world impact and become a top priority for national security.”
“This funding round will allow us to accelerate our innovations in product and engineering, so that Illumio can uphold its role as the market leader in Zero Trust Segmentation and bolster cyber resiliency in every sector.”
