Valtix has closed a $12.5 million strategic funding round from Cisco Investments, Northgate Capital and The Syndicate Group (TSG) to help push its cloud-native network security platform further into the market.
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The Santa Clara, California-based cybersecurity company had started a conversation in the second half of last year to raise a Series B, however shifted strategies after hiring Douglas Murray as its new CEO in the fourth quarter. Murray said the company instead eyed a strategic investment to help grow it and prove a product/market fit.
“We now have two strategic partners to help create a foundation for our go-to-market strategy,” said Murray, who served as CEO of Big Switch Networks from 2013 until it was bought by Arista Networks in January 2020 for an undisclosed price.
Securing the cloud
Valtix’s platform helps companies secure their application environments in the three large public clouds — AWS, Microsoft’s Azure and GCP. The company helps protect customers from the new vectors they face in public cloud environments, much like incumbent firewall providers like Palo Alto Networks, FireEye and Juniper Networks did for on-premise environments.
Chad Cardenas, CEO of The Syndicate Group, said while the company is still young — founded in 2018 — he has been excited by the number of companies that have shown interest in becoming partners with Valtix.
“Valtix is on the early end of the spectrum for us to get involved with a company,” he said “But it’s a very exciting time for us to get involved.”
The company has about two dozen partners now, but has interest from about three times that amount of companies wanting to partner, Cardenas added.
Growth
Although Valtix just started to sell its cloud network platform in the first half of last year, it has dozens of customers, said Murray, who believes the company’s market will be between $3 billion and $4 billion by 2025.
After the company grows its channel partners and proves its go-to-market strategy, a Series B could occur in the 12- to 18-month range, Murray said. The 40-person company now has raised $26.5 million since being founded. Previous investors include Trinity Ventures, Vertex Ventures and Wing Venture Capital.
While the company is not focused on an exit, Murray said he sees the company as a disruptive force in security, just as FireEye and Palo Alto Networks were when they entered the market. Despite competing on some levels with those cybersecurity titans, Murray said Valtix also could look to partner with incumbents, as it did by taking a strategic investment from Cisco’s investing arm.
Murray added that when he joined the company he was looking for something early-stage that he could help mold, and believes Valtix can be formed into a billion-dollar cybersecurity company.
“If our goal was to sell to a strong incumbent I would not have taken the role,” he said.
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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