Cloud Native Security Provider Aqua Security Raises $135M to Turn Unicorn

Pure-play cloud native security company Aqua Security, has raised $135 Million in Series E funding led by ION Crossover Partners, putting Aqua’s valuation in excess of $1 Billion. The company said the new round of investment follows a period of tremendous growth and will enable the company to broaden and deepen its solution portfolio, as well as expand its presence geographically. Aqua Security’s total funding since its founding in 2015 now totals $265 million. 

• The company’s focus on cloud native security has enabled enterprises adopting technologies such as Kubernetes and containers, serverless, and other cloud-based workloads to accelerate their business while meeting strict compliance and security requirements. Aqua’s customer list includes some of the world’s leading organizations including 5 of the top 10 banks in the world. 
• The latest round of investment included broad participation from Aqua’s existing investors, including M12 – Microsoft’s venture fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Insight Partners, TLV Partners, Greenspring Associates, and Acrew Capital.  
• When Aqua Security was established, it mainly concentrated on container deployment. But as time passed, it quickly shifted to various other technologies that the market demanded. Aqua is well known for becoming the best solution for container security and it was the only one in its field to utilize the cloud-native environment to succeed in the long run.  
• Aqua CEO Dror David said, “Enterprises that five years ago were experimenting with different types of technologies are now facing a complete stack, a completely different ecosystem, and a completely new set of security equipment”. 
• In 2020 this company which is mostly concentrated on mid-size and larger companies, suddenly doubled the number of paying customers, and now it has more than half a dozen customers with an ARR of over $1million each. 
• David added, “We want to grow from a product perspective, we want to grow from a go-to-market and expand the geographical coverage and we also want to be a little more acquisitive. That’s another direction we are looking at because now we have the platform that allows us to do that.”