Security startup Crowdstrike raises another $100 million, valued at almost $1 billion

pulse

May 17, 2017 5:57 PM

The $100 million funding round in CrowdStrike was led by VC firm Accel and comes at a time when cyber security has dominated the headlines.

CrowdStrike founder CEO George Kurtz

Crowdstrike, the security startup best known for discovering that Russians were behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee, has raised yet another $100 million.

The six-year-old company has now raised $256 million and is valued at just under $1 billion, the New York Times reports.

This $100 million was led by Accel. Crowdstrike had also raised $100 million back in 2015 led by CapitalG (formerly Google Capital) that valued the company at $667 million.

The investment in Crowdstrike comes at an interesting time. Security breaches are continuously making headlines and one of Crowdstrike's biggest competitors, Tanium, was the subject of much bad press last month. Tanium raised $287 million of venture investment at a valuation of $3.7 billion, making it one of the most highly valued security startups in tech these days. But its CEO was accused of firing employees right before their stock vested (a charge he denied) and the company was then accused of inappropriately exposing a hospital's network by doing live demos (a situation the company sort of admitted to).

Missteps by one competitor is an opportunity for another. And VCs are flush with cash right now, looking to pour more money into strong companies, although perhaps not at the super sweet terms they were offering back in 2015.

Crowdstrike has not been without its controversies, too. In February, the company tried, and failed, to get a temporary restraining order and injunction to stop a software testing lab, known as NSS Labs, from publishing results of a test that pitted CrowdStrike's software against several competitors.

The company says it's growing quickly, and that's the thing that's music to a VC's ears. Although CrowdStrike has not released revenue numbers, it says it counts 10% of the Fortune 1000 as customers and has seen big growth in the number of deals valued at $1 million or more per year.

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