CrowdStrike Raises US$200 Million, Potential IPO on the Way

Cybersecurity startup CrowdStrike on Tuesday (June 19) announced that it has raised over US$200 million in the latest round of funding and has achieved a valuation of more than US$3 billion.

The Series E financing was led by General Atlantic, Accel and IVP with participation from March Capital and CapitalG, an investment arm of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG).

Prior to the current round of funding, CrowdStrike previously raised US$281 million in five rounds of funding with the initial round in February 2012.

“We are building the business to support massive sales volume and this round of funding will accelerate the growth of our operations, continued innovation, technology development, and geographic expansion,” George Kurtz, chief executive officer of CrowdStrike said in a press release.

The company said that it had a 500 percent year-over-year growth in the number of US$1 million or greater annual contract value (ACV) transactions and a 167 percent growth in the number of subscription customers.

“The team at Accel is thrilled to participate in another funding round with CrowdStrike, underscoring our confidence in the company’s compelling value proposition,” said Sameer Gandhi, partner at Accel. “It is clear from CrowdStrike’s explosive growth that they have  separated from the pack of next-gen vendors and continue to take market share from the legacy antivirus vendors.”

Founded in 2011, CrowdStrike offers cloud-delivered endpoint protection and uses artificial intelligence (AI) to prevent attacks before it breaches a network.

In early June, the company offered a warranty of up to US$1 million to customers if a data breach occurs within the protected environment.

According to a report published by P&S Market Research in November 2017, the global AI  in cybersecurity market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36 percent during the forecast period 2017 to 2023 to reach $18.1 billion by 2023. The report said t AI will act in a way that promotes interest of humans to contain the phishing and malicious attacks that cost millions to organizations.

“CrowdStrike’s unique cloud-based approach positions them as a leading SaaS player in the endpoint security market, leveraging their platform to deliver on the full disruptive potential of the cloud, combined with a recurring subscription revenue model. These are critical advantages for an endpoint security company, and we fully believe in CrowdStrike’s ability to excel in the endpoint security space,” said David George, principal at General Atlantic.

As far as whether or not the company has plans to enter the public market, Kurtz told Reuters that an initial public offering (IPO)  is certainly an option it continues to evaluate.

“We have to consider a lot of factors, including the overall market condition, but given the size and scale [of CrowdStrike], we will certainly be embraced by the public market,” Kurtz told the publication.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Bala Yogesh, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.