Netskope raises $300M to expand both its platform and go-to market

Netskope announced that the company has closed a new $300 million investment round led by existing investor ICONIQ Growth. Also participating in this latest funding round were all other major existing Netskope investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Accel, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Base Partners, Sapphire Ventures, and Geodesic Capital.

Following this significantly oversubscribed investment round, Netskope has achieved a post-money valuation of $7.5 billion.

Continued investment in Netskope from premier investors further validates the company’s exceptional team, vision, track record of strong global execution, and opportunity to continue its rapid gaining of share in the fast-growing CAGR market which analysts estimate to be a $30 billion total addressable market by 2024, with cloud security CAGR growth estimated to exceed 30% over the next several years. Netskope will continue to aggressively expand both its platform and go-to market amidst its hypergrowth to meet the strong demand for its Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture.

Cybercrime is increasing at an alarming rate. As enterprises transform their legacy IT infrastructure and move applications and data to the cloud, security needs to transform as well. Netskope’s Security Cloud delivers a comprehensive, cloud-native SASE platform of technologies that enable secure enterprise digital transformation and secure remote connectivity using integrated Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), Secure Web Gateway (SWG), and Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) capabilities.

Netskope’s cloud-native SASE architecture also includes NewEdge, which enables fast and secure access from any location to data, applications, and websites wherever they reside.

As Gartner notes in its 2021 Strategic Roadmap for SASE Convergence, “by 2024, 30% of enterprises will adopt cloud-delivered SWG, CASB, ZTNA, and branch office firewall-as-a-service capabilities from the same vendor, up from less than 5% in 2020.” Netskope’s approach to SASE and Zero Trust cloud architecture has seen rapid adoption by enterprises and governments all over the world, and has been repeatedly recognized as a leader by top analysts and customers, as evidenced in multiple, consecutive Gartner Magic Quadrant leadership citations and Gartner Peer Insight Customer Choice Awards for CASB and SWG.

Today, among more than 1,500 worldwide customers, Netskope serves:

• Over 30 of the Fortune 100
• 2 of the world’s 4 largest commercial banks
• 5 of the world’s 7 largest healthcare providers
• 2 of the world’s 3 largest telecommunications companies
• 2 of the world’s 4 largest retailers

“We started Netskope because we saw a cloud-centric, digital-first future of business that simply can’t be achieved using legacy approaches to security and networking,” said Sanjay Beri, CEO and co-founder of Netskope. “We were SASE before the term SASE existed and today we are seeing our vision manifest across the globe as enterprises increasingly turn to Netskope to enable secure digital transformation. We are fortunate to have attracted a truly exceptional team and set of partners, customers and industry luminaries who support and bring tremendous value to us, and we are pleased to take another step forward with all of them in our journey.”

“Digital transformation doesn’t happen without network transformation and security transformation, and we believe that’s where Netskope delivers like no other provider,” said Will Griffith, founding partner of ICONIQ Growth. “The demand for Netskope as part of a properly designed SASE architecture is very strong, and Sanjay and the entire Netskope team are seizing their moment. Netskope is pointing the way to where cloud, networking, security, and data protection are headed long-term. We deeply value our investment partnership with the company and are excited to expand it as we continue on this journey.”

This latest funding round joins a number of corporate momentum and product release highlights for Netskope in the past 18 months, including:

• Expanded Board and leadership team with cybersecurity and networking industry luminaries from Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, FireEye, Riverbed, and more
• Honored in the Forbes Cloud 100 for the fourth year, rising 16 spots from previous placement to #48
• Named by Gartner as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) for the fourth year in a row, and a visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateway in Netskope’s first year of inclusion
• Named by Gartner as the 2021 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for both CASB and SWG, including ranking #1 among all SWG vendors as the best customer rated SWG
• Further expanded coverage of NewEdge Security Private Cloud across North America, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific, with NewEdge recognized as a leader in SASE architectures in terms of speed and public cloud peering relationships
• Expanded patent portfolio—highlighting continued SASE leadership and innovation in data protection—to more than 75 patents worldwide, with more than 60 additional patents pending for Netskope inventors
• Launched The SASE Accreditation, a vendor-agnostic course intended to address design requirements for SASE
• Delivered continuous risk management through the launch of Advanced Analytics, helping organizations understand, prioritize, and measure their efforts to improve security for their applications, data, and users
• Delivered Zero Trust Network Access solution with Netskope Private Access