14 DAY TRIAL // Shape Security, a company that has recently come out of stealth mode, has announced raising $40 million (€29 million) in a Series C funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners. Sierra Ventures and existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Venrock, Google Ventures, TomorrowVentures, and Allegis Capital have also taken part in this funding round. The money that has been raised will be used to enhance Shape Security’s web defense solutions and to develop a global sales force.
Previously, in Series A and B funding, the company raised another $26 million (€19 million), which means that the total capital raised so far is $66 million (€48 million).
“Shape is introducing something completely revolutionary to defend against all types of automated attacks that have been the cause of many high-profile breaches in the last year. The company is changing the economics of web hacking by making it harder for cybercriminals to complete their missions,” said Promod Haque, senior managing partner at NVP.
“With Shape's experienced leadership team and its innovative technology, the economic and social impact they will have on the fight against cyber crime is evident and Norwest Venture Partners is excited to be a part of this movement.”
In January, right after emerging from stealth mode, Shape Security announced ShapeShifter, an appliance that leverages real-time polymorphism to protect websites against malware and bots.
“Shape's technology is disruptive to the entire cybersecurity market. By preventing the automation which enables malware to function, Shape is able to effectively do with a single technology what others cannot do with a dozen products,” said Tim Guleri, managing director of Sierra Ventures.
Compared to other website defense solutions, which detect attacks based on previously collected data, ShapeShifter acts as a “botwall” that uses real-time polymorphism to turn sites into constantly moving targets.
This technique mitigates attacks that rely on malware, botnets and scripts by constantly changing code and removing the static elements utilized by the cyber threats.
“Since our launch last month, we have been inundated with inquiries from customers all over the world,” said Derek Smith, Shape Security CEO.
“We have worked with early adopters in financial services, healthcare and retail, and our goal with this new funding is to scale quickly to protect every industry.”
Shape Security is led by an impressive team, including experts and former executives from Google, Cisco, VMWare, Mozilla, Palo Alto Networks and the Pentagon.