Follow The Money: 13 Tech Venture Capital Investments In October

Show Me The Money

We're deep into fall, but that hasn't put a chill on the venture capital flowing to IT startups. In October startups followed by CRN pulled in new rounds of financing ranging from $3 million to as much as $140 million.

Security startups continue to dominate our monthly Follow the Money list with about half of the companies this month falling into that technology segment. Other funded companies provide networking, IT management, data protection and cloud service technologies.

In total, the 13 companies in this month's roundup pulled in $459.8 million.

AppDirect

Headquarters: San Francisco

Co-CEOs: Nicolas Desmarais and Daniel Saks (pictured)

New Funding: $140 million

Round: Series E

Backers: J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Foundry Group, iNovia Capital, Mithril Capital Management, StarVest Partners and Stingray Digital

AppDirect, a cloud service commerce leader, operates a fast-growing network of cloud service resellers through which it reaches more than 130 business users. With this latest round of funding the company reached the "unicorn" market valuation level of $1 billion.

In September AppDirect acquired App Carousel, a developer of app management platforms for mobile and connected devices, in a move that will help AppDirect grow its mobile business and expand its Internet of Things capabilities.

Cato Networks

Headquarters: Tel Aviv

CEO: Shlomo Kramer

New Funding: $20 million

Round: Series A

Backers: Aspect Ventures and U.S. Venture Partners

Cato Networks develops a Network Security-as-a-Service (NSaaS) platform that the company says is changing the way security is delivered and managed for organizations with distributed, mobile and cloud IT.

Launched earlier this year, the company was co-founded by Kramer, who previously co-founded Check Point Software Technologies and Imperva, and Gur Shatz, who co-founded Incapsula.

Code42

Headquarters: Minneapolis

CEO: Joe Payne

New Funding: $85 million

Round: Series B

Backers: JMI Equity, New Enterprise Associates, Accel and Split Rock Partners

Code42 provides endpoint data backup protection and security technology that protects files residing on systems and devices outside the firewall.

In October the company released the 5.0 edition of its software, strengthening the product's core backup and recovery capabilities, enhancing its usability and making it easier to migrate data from one device to another. A new Legal Hold app makes it easier for litigation staff to identify, collect and preserve electronically stored information.

Cybereason

Headquarters: Boston

CEO: Lior Div

New Funding: $59 million

Round: Series C

Backers: SoftBank Corp., CRV and Spark Capital

Cybereason develops an endpoint detection and response platform that organizations use to detect cyberattacks in real time. Members of the Israeli Defense Forces' signal intelligence arm, Unit 820, founded the company in Israel in 2012. In May U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin invested $25 million in the company.

Cytegic

Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel and Hackensack, N.J.

CEO: Shay Zandani

New Funding: $3 million

Round: Second Angel Round

Backers: Several individual investors including Paul Jenkel, former senior vice president at a leading global investment management firm; Stuart Bernstein of The Bernstein Companies; and Kenneth Stein, a partner at Greenfield Stein & Senior LLP

Cytegic is an Israeli cybersecurity startup whose stated goal is to mature, quantify and qualify corporate cybersecurity risk management practices.

The company has developed a system that analyzes an organization's cybersecurity risk posture against external threat intelligence, evaluates the potential impact of changes and then presents risk scores that guide management oversight and decision-making. The platform includes three products: the Cyber Decision Support System, Cyber Maturity Assessment and Dynamic Trend Analysis.

Dome9 Security

Headquarters: Menlo Park, Calif.

CEO: Zohar Alon

New Funding: $8.3 million

Round: Series B

Backers: ORR Partners, JAL Ventures, Pinnacle, Lazarus Israel Opportunity Fund and Opus Capital Ventures

Another cybersecurity company with roots in Israel, Dome9 Security develops technology specifically designed to protect cloud infrastructure systems. The Dome9 SecOps product orchestrates security policies, visualizes security risks, and remediates threats to protect IaaS deployments and ensure secure application delivery in the cloud.

The additional capital will allow the company to expand its sales and marketing operations – the company currently has 250 customers – and continue developing its cloud security product portfolio.

Illusive Networks

Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel

CEO: Shlomo Touboul

New Funding: $22 million

Round: Series B

Backers: New Enterprise Associates, Bessemer Venture Partners, Marker LLC, Citi Ventures and Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors

Cybersecurity startup Illusive Networks focuses on deception technology, a new class of security IT that uses decoy sensors to delay or disrupt cyberattacks – creating "a hall of mirrors where attackers can no longer determine what's real and what's false," as the company describes it.

The additional funding will fuel the company's sales and marketing efforts and be used to expand its engineering and support teams.

Lumeta

Headquarters: Somerset. N.J.

CEO: Pat Donnellan

New Funding: $13 million

Round: Private equity

Backers: Undisclosed international investment group

Lumeta is a leading vendor in network situational awareness technology that provides comprehensive analytical capabilities that help organizations shore up their security posture and protect critical network infrastructure.

Lumeta will use the funds to broaden and accelerate product development and expand sales and marketing efforts. The company also established a financing relationship with Silicon Valley Bank.

Netsertive

Headquarters: Morrisville, N.C.

CEO: Brendan Morrissey

New Funding: $15 million

Round: Series C

Backers: River Cities Capital Funds, RRE Ventures, Harbert Venture Partners and Greycoft Partners

Netsertive provides digital marketing intelligence software, including MarketWise and StreetWise, which helps major product brands work more closely with local businesses to win customers. The new financing will help the company capitalize on the opportunities in co-op marketing.

NodePrime

Headquarters: San Francisco

CEO: James Malachowski

New Funding: $7 million

Round: Seed round

Backers: Menlo Ventures, NEA, Formation 8, Ericsson, Initialized Capital, Crosslink Capital and TEEC Angel Fund

NodePrime emerged from stealth with this funding announcement, as well as debuting its software-defined data center platform that allows companies to centrally view, diagnose and control their IT infrastructure in just minutes. The product includes a complete stack of tools, data and APIs that fix the current siloed approach to machine data collection and automation, making it possible for system administrators to provision and manage multivendor data center environments.

Numerify

Headquarters: Cupertino, Calif.

CEO: Gaurav Rewari

New Funding: $37.5 million

Round: Series C

Backers: Tenaya Capital, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Silicon Valley Bank and Four Rivers Group

Numerify provides cloud-based analytical applications for IT. Businesses employ the software to improve their own operational efficiencies and get the most out of their IT investments. Customers include Netflix, Intuit, Weill Cornell Medical and Aruba Networks.

The funding will be used to expand the capabilities of Numerify's product across new areas of IT business operations and support the company's growth in North America and Europe.

PubNub

Headquarters: San Francisco

CEO: Todd Greene

New Funding: $25 million

Round: Series C

Backers: Sapphire Ventures, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Sound Ventures, Envision Ventures, Relay Ventures, Scale Venture Partners and TiE Angels

PubNub operates a secure global data stream network and API that customers use to connect, scale and manage real-time mobile applications and Internet of Things devices. In September the company announced it is compliant with HIPAA specifications, allowing health-care subscribers to send electronic health data across the PubNub network.

SentinelOne

Headquarters: Mountain View, Calif.

CEO: Tomer Weingarten

New Funding: $25 million

Round: Series B

Backers: ThirdPoint Ventures, Tiger Global, Data Collective, Granite Hill Capital Partners, Westly Group and SineWave Ventures

SentinelOne is an endpoint security startup developing next-generation anti-virus technology. The vendor's Dynamic Execution Inspection technology can detect and block attacks on any endpoint device including desktop computers, mobile devices, embedded systems and critical infrastructure.

The company plans to use the additional funding to expand its sales, marketing, research and development, and customer support operations in Mountain View, New York, Tel Aviv, Paris and Singapore.