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Tanium closed the round - its third in just more than a year -
at a $3.5 billion valuation. The company was valued at $1.8
billion in March, the last time it raised cash.
Tanium is the highest-valued venture-backed cyber security
company worldwide, according CB Insights, which does research on
venture capital.
"They built something which will likely never be built again,"
said Bryan Taylor, a partner with TPG Capital, a private equity
firm that joined the round.
T. Rowe Price and Institutional Venture Partners also joined the
round.
Founded in 2007 by father-and-son duo David and Orion Hindawi,
Tanium provides computer system security and management for
government agencies and companies, allowing them to scan and
assess every device on a network within seconds.
Tanium's technology can check up to several million computers on
a network for signs of a hack or bug and deploy a patch or
quarantine the infection in 15 seconds or less.
Prior to Tanium, most companies and agencies required days, even
weeks, to run this type of scan of their networks, security
experts say, making it nearly impossible to catch attacks as
they happen.
"In the new world of cyber attacks and nation state attacks, you
have minutes before it's old news and you are already exposed,"
said Stephen Sinofsky, board partner at venture capital firm
Andreessen Horowitz and a Tanium director.
Andreessen Horowitz joined this round after investing $90
million in May 2014 and $52 million in March, making Tanium
among the firm's largest investments.
Part of the attraction, investors say, is that nearly every
defense and intelligence agency in the U.S. government uses
Tanium software.
"It's not just the DOD (Department of Defense) but every
three-letter federal agency," Taylor said, that have adopted
Tanium to defend themselves or other victims of attacks.
As high-profile hacks such as the Office of Personnel Management
data breach, which affected at least 22 million people,
continue, the demand for better cyber security technology, and
money to fund it, is soaring.
But Tanium is the rare startup that went seven years without
raising venture capital and has been profitable since 2012, the
company says.
(Editing by Stephen R. Trousdale and Cynthia Osterman)
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