Earlier today, Netskope announced that we have closed a $168.7 million Series F funding round led by existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partners. Current investors Accel, Geodesic Capital, Iconiq Capital, Sapphire Ventures, and Social Capital also participated, in addition to new investor Base Partners.
I’m very excited about this investment and what it means for our future (I’ll get to that in a minute), but I’m also humbled by how much we have achieved since starting the company six years ago. Whether bringing Netskope for Web to market, the innovation and enhancements we have made in securing cloud infrastructure like AWS and Azure and GCP, the constant pushing of the envelope in DLP and threat protection for all cloud and web environments, or welcoming the Sift Security team to Netskope earlier this year, I am proud of and thankful for our amazing team, partners, and customers.
None of those accomplishments would have been possible without these amazing team members and without the culture of openness, collaboration, no politics and focus on innovation that is the Netskope way. I also want to share why this funding is so important for Netskope.
The concept of “digital transformation” has gained a lot of currency in the last several years, as the shift to the cloud and the rise of a new work-from-anywhere mentality has rippled across the enterprise. While digital transformation may be a buzzword, there is no denying it is a real business imperative, with the cloud as its foundation.
The majority of organizations (as many as 89 percent, according to research firm International Data Group (IDG)), have adopted digital-first strategies. They are doing this to accelerate their businesses to operate in a more cost-effective manner, deliver on-demand customer service, and accommodate a globalized workforce.
To achieve this digital-first approach, many of those organizations are turning to the tens of thousands of cloud services available such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Box, Dropbox, Google G-Suite, Microsoft Office 365, Slack, and Workplace by Facebook. All of these are built using the new language of the Internet, and they shift much of the administrative control away from IT, increasing digital risk and creating new challenges for security teams.
Legacy cyber security vendors have react