Vectra AI raises $130 million led by Blackstone Growth (BXG)

Vectra AI, a pioneer in threat detection and response announced a $130 million round of funding led by funds managed by Blackstone Growth (BXG, “Blackstone Growth”). The investment will help fuel Vectra’s continued growth through platform innovation and expansion into new markets and geographies, solidifying its Cognito platform as a market-pioneering solution for artificial intelligence (AI)-driven cloud security for threat detection and response. 

Existing investors also participated in the funding round, increasing the company’s total funding to more than $350 million at a post-money $1.2 billion valuations.

Product innovation

As recent high-profile incidents impacting SolarWinds and Microsoft Exchange (Hafnium) illustrate, breaches are becoming commonplace and hard to detect because state actors and cybercriminals use multi-stage attacks that exploit supply chain weaknesses, legitimate tools, and impersonate users to steal data.

Security leaders must commit themselves to enhance research and development, innovation

As the threat landscape continues to become more complex, security pioneers must commit themselves to enhance research and development, innovation, and strategic implementation of resource-relieving technology, such as AI. This product innovation is necessary to provide the contextual awareness security teams need to combat the expanding attack surface, created by the increased use of cloud resources and SaaS applications, mobile devices, work-from-home access, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Cybersecurity

“Over the past year, we have witnessed a continuous series of the most impactful and widespread cyberattacks in history. To protect their employees and digital assets, our customers require security solutions that are smarter than today’s adversaries and provide coverage for cloud, data centres, and SaaS applications” said Hitesh Sheth, president, and chief executive officer at Vectra.

“As we look to the future, Blackstone’s global presence, operational resources, and in-house technical expertise will help us achieve our mission to become one of the dominant cybersecurity companies in the world.”

Innovative AI technology

Vectra has a proven ability to stop in-progress attacks in the cloud, on corporate networks"

Viral Patel, a Senior Managing Director at Blackstone, said, “Vectra has a proven ability to stop in-progress attacks in the cloud, on corporate networks, and in private data centres for some of the top organisations in the world.”

“The company has experienced extraordinary success through its commitment to combining innovative AI technology, first-class customer service, and top talent, and Blackstone is excited to become part of the Vectra team.”

Threat detection and response

Customer demand for threat detection and response in the private and public clouds, and the immediate value Vectra’s AI-driven Cognito platform delivers to customers, are major forces driving the company’s global growth. Cognito detects attacker behaviors and protects its users from being compromised, regardless of location.

The platform works across the complex enterprise IT infrastructure to continuously learn and deploy advanced AI, threat intelligence feeds, and known attack profiles to identify breaches as they are being executed. This approach provides security teams with invaluable time to respond to threats and seamlessly integrates with existing security tools to automatically remediate threats.

Solutions to prevent cyberattacks

Vectra is providing a critical solution that levels the playing field against the most damaging cyber threats"

John Stecher, Chief Technology Officer at Blackstone, said, “Through our experience as a client of Vectra, we’ve been highly impressed by their world-class technology and exceptional team. They have exactly the types of tools that technology leaders need to separate the signal from the noise in defending their organisations from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. We’re excited to back Vectra and Hitesh as a strategic partner in the years ahead supporting their continued growth.”

“As organisations around the world increasingly focus on cybersecurity, we believe Vectra is providing a critical solution that levels the playing field against the sophisticated actors that generate the most damaging cyber threats,” said James Socas, a Managing Director at Blackstone. “Vectra is exactly the kind of fast-growing leader we help back and build at Blackstone.”

Research and development

In 2020, the company continued to experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) exceeding 100 percent, while sales of Cognito Detect™ for Microsoft Office 365 have grown at a rate of over 700 percent.

Vectra also has a rich history of investing in research and development (R&D) projects, which has been key to the sustained growth of the organisation. Vectra continues to invest in R&D well over the industry average of pioneering security companies.