Grip Security raises $41 million led by Daniel Loeb's Third Point Ventures
"There are companies that previously secured funding based on unicorn valuations with our level of revenue," said CEO Lior Yaari
Cybersecurity company Grip Security announced on Tuesday that it has raised $41 million in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to $66 million. The round was led by Third Point Ventures, run by activist founder Daniel Loeb. Loeb established official operations in Israel about a year ago, and Grip is the fund's first new investment since the beginning of its operations here. Yoav Leitersdorf's YL Ventures fund, which led Grip's Seed round, and Intel Capital, which led its Round A, also participated in the fundraising. Both of those rounds were held almost immediately after the establishment of Grip in 2021. Another investor in this round is the investment group, The Syndicate Group.
Full list of Israeli high-tech funding rounds in 2023
Grip did not reveal the company's valuation in this round, but according to estimates, it has significantly increased compared to the previous round, reaching around $200-$400 million. Sapir Harosh, a partner at Third Point Ventures based in Tel Aviv, will join Grip's board.
Grip's solution is designed to manage the use of SaaS applications by employees in organizations, which leads to a loss of control over the number of users, the manner of use, and the exposure of organizational databases to attacks. The company’s SaaS Security Control Plane platform helps companies discover, prioritize, secure, and orchestrate the mitigation and remediation of risks. According to Grip, each department in an average organization currently utilizes about 30 different applications for work, and an average organization increases the number of applications by 25% every year. The cybersecurity challenge in this area doesn't necessarily arise from weaknesses in the applications themselves but also from employees who sometimes use weak passwords.
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Grip Security was founded by Lior Yaari (CEO), Idan Fast (CTO), and Alon Shenkler (VP R&D) in February 2021. They met during their military service in units 81 and 8200. Currently, the company employs 75 people in its offices in Tel Aviv and Boston. According to the company, its revenues have surged by 400% in the last year, which is threefold growth, and it serves numerous clients across different industries. "This year we have already reached revenues of millions of dollars, and next year they will be in the tens of millions of dollars," Yaari told Calcalist. He also mentioned that the funds will be used to expand the company. The ambitious goal is to double the workforce to 150 employees within about a year and a half.
According to Yaari, the recruitment process was swift but not without challenges. "Raising money is always difficult; it's never easy. However, we managed to raise it in just a few weeks. What has mainly changed compared to 2021 are the metrics. There are companies that previously secured funding based on unicorn valuations with our level of revenues. The investors really scrutinized us: they spoke with all the customers and partners. We felt their genuine interest in ensuring our ability to sustain such rapid growth in the coming years. They wanted to confirm that our growth wasn't a one-time occurrence. Moreover, they verified the existence of paying customers following recent fraudulent events, such as those involving Joonko and Vesttoo."
