HANOVER, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dragos, Inc., the global leader in cybersecurity for industrial controls systems (ICS)/operational technology (OT) environments, today announced that it has secured $110 million in Series C funding from investors representing some of the world’s largest corporations. The round represents the most substantial investment-to-date for a company in the ICS/OT cybersecurity sector.2 The new funding will be used to support an expanding set of global customers across a diversity of industries - including electric, oil & gas, manufacturing, mining, chemicals, and transportation – and to accelerate the next stage of the company’s worldwide operations to address the burgeoning market for ICS/OT cybersecurity solutions.
Dragos’s Series C funding round is co-led by National Grid Partners, the independent venture investment and innovation arm of National Grid plc., one of the world’s largest investor-owned energy companies; and Koch Disruptive Technologies, the investment arm of Koch Industries, one of the world’s largest technology companies and manufacturers, which invests in emerging and transformative high-growth technologies. The Series C investment brings the company’s total funding to $158 Million, the highest funding level for any start-up in the ICS/OT cybersecurity space. Other Series C investors include Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures (SAEV), a fund of Aramco Ventures, the $1.5 billion venture capital program of Aramco; Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NASDAQ: HPE), the global edge-to-cloud platform as-a-service company; and existing investors including Allegis Cyber, Canaan, DataTribe, Energy Impact Partners, and Schweitzer Engineering Labs.
“This is a decisive moment in the ICS/OT cybersecurity market, with many powerful drivers coalescing to generate an unprecedented level of market interest and customer demand,” said Robert M. Lee, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Dragos, Inc. “Our Series C funding is an investment by industry, for industry, and will enable us to fully meet this moment for our customers by advancing the innovative technology at the center of our Dragos Platform, expanding our global footprint, and continuing to recruit the world’s most elite team of ICS/OT cybersecurity experts.”
Forrester Research reports that the increasingly complex and interconnected nature of today's industrial control systems - command network and systems devices designed to monitor and control industrial processes - combined with hackers' interest in compromising them for political and economic purposes, has made these systems more vulnerable than ever.3 As security and risk managers work to counter this increase in vulnerability to ensure business continuity and resilience, they need access to deep ICS/OT expertise and innovative technology architected to protect and defend industrial environments. In addition, industrial organizations have been forced to accept the cybersecurity risks of remote operations on an accelerated timeline and move quickly to close the gap left by legacy risk management approaches. This has resulted in an exponential increase in expanded threat surface with increased vulnerabilities and new attacker methods, translating to more opportunities for cyber adversaries.
“Koch Industries has more than 500 global manufacturing facilities, and the need for protection from cybersecurity threats grows each day,” said Byron Knight, Managing Director of Koch Disruptive Technologies. “As we continue to transform and modernize operations, Dragos will be a key partner in helping protect these assets to ensure we can continue providing products and services our customers prefer.”
"Combating cyber threats against critical assets that power our operations is at the center of our risk management approach across the entirety of Koch Industries," said Jarrod Benson, Chief Information Security Officer of Koch Industries. "Industrial cyberattacks can impact worker safety, plant productivity, and business continuity. Safeguarding our data is important and protecting our operations is essential."
“We understand the importance of technologies like the Dragos Platform that protect operational technologies and provide insights to help customers stay at the forefront of cyber innovation,” said Lisa Lambert, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at National Grid and President of National Grid Partners. “We first invested in Dragos in 2018, and since then, their innovation in industrial cybersecurity has become even more important. We’re pleased to reinvest and to co-lead the round at this important stage of the company’s growth.”
National Grid Partners Director Andre Turenne and Byron Knight, Managing Director of Koch Disruptive Technologies, have joined the Dragos board as part of the funding round.
In addition to facilitating the next stage of Dragos’s business growth, the Series C funding will enable the company to continue to build its worldwide operations to meet the cybersecurity needs of critical infrastructure at all levels, no matter the size or complexity of the organization. The effort to make ICS/OT-specific cybersecurity expertise and technology more accessible is a key element of the company’s overarching mission to “Safeguard Civilization,” and will be aided by expanding its support for ICS/OT practitioner-oriented events, education, and community networking opportunities.
About Dragos, Inc.
Dragos has a global mission: to safeguard civilization from those trying to disrupt the industrial infrastructure we depend on every day. The practitioners who founded Dragos were drawn to this mission through decades of government and private sector experience.
Dragos codifies the knowledge of our cybersecurity experts into an integrated software platform that provides customers critical visibility into ICS and OT networks so that threats are identified and can be addressed before they become significant events. Our solutions protect organizations across a range of industries, including power and water utilities, energy, and manufacturing, and are optimized for emerging applications like the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT).
Dragos is privately held and headquartered in the Washington, DC area with regional presence around the world, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and the Middle East.
1 SOURCE: Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security Market by Component, Solution, Service, Security Type, Vertical, and Region - Global Forecast to 2025 Marketandmarkets Research. The study involved four major activities in estimating the current size of the ICS security market.
2 Assessment based on information provided by financial data company, Pitchbook, and publicly available sources.
3 Forrester Research, New Tech: Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security Solutions, Q1 2019
