Salt Security, a start-up offering an AI-drive API Protection Platform, raised $140 million in Series D funding, bringing total funding to $271 million and its pre-IPO valuation to $1.4 billion.
The Salt Security API Protection Platform provides a unique approach to API security that leverages its API Context Engine (ACE) Architecture, a cloud-scale big data engine that applies machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to secure APIs.
Salt Security says the proliferation of APIs to support digital transformation, application mobilization, and other IT modernization initiatives, combined with the focus bad actors have put on tapping APIs as an attack vector, have laid bare the reality that traditional tools, such as web application firewalls (WAFs) and API gateways, cannot adequately defend against API attacks and vulnerabilities.
The funding round was led by CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent growth fund, with participation from all existing investors, including Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, Tenaya Capital, S Capital VC, Advent International, Alkeon Capital, and DFJ Growth. The investment by CapitalG, less than eight months after Salt Security raised its $70 million Series C round.
“Our investment in Salt Security comes at a time of critical importance for the wider business community. APIs are essential to enabling business innovation, but security risks are multiplying at an unprecedented scope and scale. Salt took an innovative, best-in-class approach to building its API security platform leveraging cloud-scale big data, allowing it to effectively detect and stop attacks in the wild while not compromising on strong shift left capabilities,” said James Luo, Partner at CapitalG and Salt Security board member.
The company cites the following milestones for the past year:
- 500% growth in revenue
- 300% growth in its customer base
- 250% growth in its employee count
- 900% growth in signed customers among Fortune 500 and Global 500 companies
Salt Security was founded in 2016 by alumni of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and serial entrepreneur executives in the cybersecurity field and is based in Silicon Valley and Israel.
