10 Cool Tech Companies That Raised Funding In April 2021

Cloud storage, big data and next-generation cybersecurity technology developers were among the companies that reported new rounds of funding in April.

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Startup companies pushing technology boundaries in big data, cybersecurity, data storage and AI were among the big winners in attracting new venture financing in April.

SambaNova Systems, which develops a hardware/software platform for running AI applications, brought in the biggest haul. Kyligence, Striim and Redis Labs were among the big data startups that reported impressive funding rounds during the month while cybersecurity startups that attracted additional financing included Sysdig, Vectra AI and Deep Instinct.

What follows are our picks for 10 cool tech startups that landed new funding in April.

SambaNova Systems

Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.

CEO: Rodrigo Liang

Funding: SambaNova raised $676 million in Series D funding, putting the company’s valuation at more than $5 billion.

Investors: The funding round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with additional financing from new investors Temasek and GIC, plus participation by existing investors Intel Capital, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Walden International, WRVI, and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.

What company does: SambaNova has developed an advanced system, including hardware, software and services, for running AI applications from the data center to the cloud and the edge.

CEO Quote: “We’re here to revolutionize the AI market, and this round greatly accelerates that mission. Traditional CPU and GPU architectures have reached their computational limits. To truly unleash AI’s potential to solve humanity’s greatest technology challenges, a new approach is needed. We’ve figured out that approach and it’s exciting to see a wealth of prudent investors validate that.”

Sysdig

Headquarters: San Francisco

CEO: Suresh Vasudevan

Funding: Sysdig raised $188 million in Series F funding that brings the company’s total financing to $394 million and sets the company’s valuation at $1.19 billion.

Investors: The funding round was led by Premji Invest & Associates and Third Point Ventures with participation from Accel, Bain Capital Ventures, DFJ Growth, Glynn Capital, Goldman Sachs, Insight Partners and Next47.

What company does: The Sysdig Secure DevOps Platform is used to provide security for containers, Kubernetes and public cloud infrastructure.

CEO Quote: “None of the incumbent vendors that have a very traditional mindset of security born around implementing firewalls and implementing more traditional server-based security solutions are ready for this modern shift. This war is going to be won by startups, and Sysdig is one of the best-positioned companies.”

Druva

Headquarters: Sunnyvale, Calif.

CEO: Jaspreet Singh

Funding: Druva raised $147 million in Series H funding that brings the company’s total funding to $475 million and its valuation to more than $2 billion.

Investors: The funding round was led by global investment group Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, with a significant investment by Neuberger Berman. Also participating were existing investors Viking Global Investors and Atreides Management.

What company does: Druva develops cloud-based data protection and data management technology.

CEO Quote: “We’re still heavily investing into areas of growth, both from an innovation point of view and from a market expansion point of view. We are fortunate to have some great investors along the way and felt like we could go and have this funding to accelerate growth and drive more adoption. In the last year, you’ve seen businesses compounded their investment into cloud-based models. [It’s] good timing for us to drive acceleration, as a matter of fact.”

Vectra AI

Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.

CEO: Hitesh Sheth

Funding: Vectra AI raised $130 million in Series F funding that brought the company’s total funding to more than $350 million and its post-money valuation to $1.2 billion.

Investors: The funding round was led by Blackstone Growth with participation from existing investors.

What company does: Vectra offers AI-driven threat detection and response systems for cloud, data center, IoT and enterprise environments.

CEO Quote: “Over the past year, we have witnessed a continuous series of the most impactful and widespread cyberattacks in history. To protect their employees and digital assets, our customers require security solutions that are smarter than today’s adversaries and provide coverage for cloud, data centers and SaaS applications. As we look to the future, Blackstone’s global presence, operational resources, and in-house technology expertise will help us achieve our mission to become one of the dominant cybersecurity companies in the world.”

Wasabi

Headquarters: Boston

CEO: David Friend

Funding: Wasabi raised $112 million in Series C funding, bringing its total funding to nearly $250 million, including $219 million in total equity financing, and boosting the company’s valuation to about $700 million.

Investors: The funding round was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company with participation from existing investors.

What company does: Wasabi provides cloud data storage services.

CEO Quote: “We tripled in revenue and the amount of storage and everything else this year, the same as we have for the last three years. So it looks like a sort of a triple-every-year kind of growth path. It can’t go on forever, but right now we’re just struggling to keep up with demand.”

Redis Labs

Headquarters: Mountain View, Calif.

CEO: Ofer Bengal

Funding: Redis Labs raised $110 million in Series G funding, bringing its total financing to $347 million and pushing its valuation over the $2 billion threshold.

Investors: New investor Tiger Global led the latest round of funding with participation from new investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and existing investor TCV. Tiger, SoftBank and TCV also acquired additional ownership as part of a $200 million secondary transaction.

What company does: Redis Labs is best known for its open-source Redis in-memory data structure store – software that provides database, managed caching and message broker capabilities. The database is offered as a high-performing alternative to traditional relational-based SQL database systems.

CEO Quote: “We founded Redis Labs with the idea that the future of the database market would be defined by performance, where Redis excels. Through the dedication of our team, Redis has become an enterprise-grade data platform to tackle nearly any real-time use case across every industry,”

Deep Instinct

Headquarters: New York

CEO: Guy Caspi

Funding: Deep Instinct raised $100 million in Series D funding, bringing the company’s total funding to $200 million.

Investors: The funding round was led by funds and accounts managed from BlackRock with participation from Untitled Investments, The Tudor Group, an investment by Anne Wojcicki, and existing investors including Millennium, Unbound, and Coatue Management, among others.

What company does: Deep Instinct’s cybersecurity platform utilizes deep learning technology to offer advanced threat prevention.

CEO Quote: “As we enter a new phase of hyper-growth, this investment round will significantly expand our go-to-market capabilities while at the same time increase our best-in-class deep learning research and product development groups. These groups will focus on further developing the company’s unique deep learning platform beyond endpoint into cloud, network, and storage to meet the accelerating needs of our customers in the face of more sophisticated threats and breaches.”

Kyligence

Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.

CEO: Luke Han

Funding: Kyligence raised $70 million in Series D funding, bringing its total funding to $118 million.

Investors: The funding round was led by SPDB International with new investors Alpha Square Group, CICC, Gopher Asset Management, Shanghai Growth Capital, PUXIN Capital and Jumbo Sheen Group participating in the round. Existing investors Eight Roads Ventures (the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International Limited), Redpoint and Shunwei Capital also participated.

What company does: Kyligence develops an AI-enhanced analytics platform that delivers sub-second query response time while performing multi-dimensional analysis against petabytes of data.

CEO Quote: “Today’s cloud data warehouses and data lake analytics are struggling to deliver cost effective analytics as data and user volumes explode. Kyligence can vastly improve the economics of these platforms via our cloud-native architecture and AI-augmented operations.”

Kandji

Headquarters: San Diego

CEO: Adam Pettit

Funding: Kandji raised $60 million Series B funding. The company has raised a total of $88.5 million in financing since its 2018 founding, including a $21 million Series A round in October.

Investors: The funding round was led by Felicis Ventures with participation from SVB Capital, Greycroft, Okta Ventures and The Spruce House Partnership.

What company does: Kandji develops apple device management software.

CEO Quote: “We are pushing the limits of innovation in the fast-growing Apple enterprise management ecosystem so that modern businesses can thrive, whether in a meeting room, on the road, or working from home. Working hand-in-hand with our customers, we are solving the needs of even the most sophisticated companies. In the weeks and months ahead Kandji will again redefine Apple enterprise management with new, purpose-built upgrades that will accelerate the impact Apple devices have in the enterprise, big and small.”

Striim

Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.

CEO: Ali Kutay

Funding: Striim raised $50 million in Series C funding, bringing Striim’s total funding to $108.5 million.

Investors: The funding round was led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity with participation by Summit Partners, Atlantic Bridge Ventures, Dell Ventures and Bosch Ventures.

What company does: Striim develops the Striim platform, real-time streaming data software that enables continuous data ingestion, data stream processing and data delivery across diverse systems in the cloud or on-premises.

CEO Quote: “From day one, our vision has been to enable access to real-time data at enterprise scale – across massive, heterogeneous environments. We are seeing firsthand the tremendous rate at which the world’s largest enterprises are joining the digital-first economy through the adoption of modern data platforms especially in the cloud.”