Cloud security platform Zscaler has announced a $100 million funding round led by late-stage investor TPG. The investment means that Zscaler is now valued in excess of $1 billion, making it a “tech unicorn.”
Silicon Valley-based Zscaler has an eight-year old SaaS platform that has 5,000 customers and more than 13 million end users protected. Top-name customers include United Airlines, Humana, NBC and the National Health Services of the UK. The company has doubled its growth year-over-year and remains cash-flow positive.
“Our mission is to make the internet safe for business by delivering an amazing security platform that protects our clients and enables the strategic adoption of cloud computing, mobile devices and the Internet of Things,” said Jay Chaudhry, CEO of Zscaler. “The investment and partnership from TPG and the global relationships and experience they provide will enable us to accelerate investment in our technology, grow our customer base and aggressively scale our business to meet growing demand. We are excited to join an elite group of security companies valued in excess of $1 billion.”
Zscaler expects to use the investment to fuel business expansion and further development of technology, which handles 15 billion Internet requests and stops more than 100 million cyber-threats per day.
“As one of the premier financial service companies in the world, we are actively adopting new technologies to increase our agility and productivity, reduce expenses and provide better service to our employees and our clients,” said Henry Jiang, CISO at Oppenheimer & Co. “Working with Zscaler, we’ve greatly improved our security, reduced expenses by more than 90% in certain areas and provided a better and safer Internet experience for our employees. We congratulate Zscaler on this important milestone and look forward to working with them long into the future.”
Existing investors EMC and Lightspeed Ventures also contributed to the round. As part of the new investment, Nehal Raj, partner at TPG, will be appointed to the Zscaler board of directors.
TPG’s investment will come from TPG Growth, the firm’s middle-market fund with more than $7 billion in assets under management and committed capital, and a focus on emerging technologies, industries and markets.
“We see tremendous opportunity in the rapidly-growing cybersecurity industry, and after spending significant time in the space, we found Zscaler to be the leading cloud-based security solution for the world’s largest and most demanding customers—a true SaaS platform like that of Salesforce or Workday,” said Nehal Raj, partner at TPG. “We are looking forward to partnering with Jay and his team to accelerate growth, most immediately by introducing Zscaler to the potential customers and channel partners within our global network.”