A collective group of stakeholders invested $60m in a Series B funding round for Claroty, a cybersecurity software provider for industrial control networks. With the backing of the collective group, the company's total investment climbed to $93m, making the round unprecedented.
Underscoring the urgency of defending critical infrastructure, this round, led by global investment firm Temasek, comes from venture capitalists that specialize in industrial control system (ICS) security, along with both the major control system vendors and the industrial assets owners and operators, including Rockwell, Siemens and Schneider Electric.
“Our unparalleled investor syndicate, which includes some of the most important industrial companies in the world, is a ringing endorsement of Claroty’s technology and the progress our team has made,” Amir Zilberstein, Claroty co-founder and CEO, said in today's press release.
The investor composition highlights the collective mission to secure the most critical networks against "economic warfare," or those attacks that are more difficult to detect but cause damage to or disrupt supply chains to manufacturing systems on underappreciated critical infrastructure.
“The recent increase in scale, scope and frequency of cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure has led to an uptick in demand for new solutions from companies around the world,” said T.J. Rylander, partner at Next47.
The rising geopolitical tensions with Iran and North Korea affirms the volatility of ICS. When coupled with warnings from DHS/CERT and the discovery of successful campaigns targeting critical infrastructure in the manufacturing industry, the need to address the risks in critical global infrastructures grows more pressing.
“A perimeter defense to cybersecurity in today’s connected world is not enough. An end-to-end approach, with solutions that provide deep visibility into operational technology and industrial control systems, is critical for the security of heavy processing environments,” said Hervé Coureil, chief digital officer at Schneider Electric.