Grip Security raises $41 million to accelerate growth and extend its market
Grip Security raised $41 million in Series B funding led by Third Point Ventures, with participation from YL Ventures, Intel Capital and The Syndicate Group. The investment brings Grip Security’s total funding to $66 million and marks a major milestone for the company, further accelerating its go-to-market strategy and advancing product development.
In today’s rapidly transforming IT landscape, managing SaaS identity risks holistically has become a pressing need for CISOs. Grip Security is positioned to address this critical challenge with its platform.
The current economic environment is causing companies to reevaluate their cybersecurity budgets, but SaaS identity risk management continues to be a critical area of investment. SaaS has created a world where data is stored everywhere and accessed from anywhere and digital transformation initiatives are accelerating this trend.
The Grip SaaS Security Control Plane (SSCP) platform delivers an approach to manage identity sprawl risks that arise from the widespread use of business-led SaaS. Grip Security’s approach of leveraging identity as the primary control point delivers the solution to discover, prioritize, secure, and orchestrate the mitigation and remediation of these risks.
“Every company is experiencing the proliferation of SaaS apps and Grip has proven repeatedly that it has the best solution in the industry. This has propelled our growth during these challenging economic times because we are focusing on a critical problem that needs to be addressed urgently,” said Lior Yaari, CEO at Grip Security.
“This new funding allows Grip Security to accelerate our innovation as we further distance ourselves from the competition and capture the exploding need for SaaS identity risk management,” Yaari added.
Business-led SaaS is largely unprotected and each of these apps is more susceptible to becoming a target that can be exploited by bad actors. The compromise of one system or app can be subsequently used to gain unauthorized access to other systems, apps, or resources, and this increases the company’s exposure to security risks.
With nearly 75,000 SaaS apps available, the adoption of SaaS continues to surge and companies are struggling to implement effective controls to manage the identity sprawl that is created. Even amidst the current economic climate that demands careful cybersecurity budget considerations, CISOs recognize the urgency of monitoring and remediating this risk.
“At Third Point Ventures we look for companies at the early revenues stage that address large and growing Enterprise Technology segments and possess a clear technology advantage. As a firm, we have a proven track record of finding companies that solve the most critical cybersecurity problems and are able to execute their go-to-market strategy. We are investing in the company because we see a tremendous need for their solution, and they have a superior product, which is proven by their accelerating market traction in this challenging market,” said Sapir Harosh, partner at Third Point Ventures based in Tel Aviv.
“The company has important competitive contracts with some of the most demanding enterprises and that is a compelling demonstration of why we think Grip will be a sustainable leader in this growing segment,” Harosh continued.
“It’s easy to connect Grip’s velocity to the ubiquity of SaaS applications and the way it exacerbated the SaaS-Identity attack surface,” said Ofer Schreiber, senior partner at YL Ventures, a longtime investor in Grip Security.
“But the true key to Grip’s success is their capacity to meet this problem head on with unparalleled innovation, robust technology that meets the needs of the largest enterprises in the world and a go-to-market strategy that’s securing major customers. It’s been incredible to be a part of Grip’s journey since we led their seed round and we are excited to continue supporting Grip,” Schreiber continued.
“With the continued rise of SaaS adoption comes the exponential increase of cybersecurity threats,” said Sunil Kurkure, managing director at Intel Capital. “With Grip Security’s approach and emphasis on identity as the key control point, businesses are able to embrace SaaS adoption securely and feel confident that their data is protected.”
With the new funding, Grip Security is set to embark on an accelerated growth trajectory. With a clear vision to define the SaaS identity risk management market, the company plans to expand investment in its go-to-market teams, research and development and operational functions to scale the company in both Israel and the United States.
The infusion of funds will also be used to expand into untapped geographic regions and solidify its position.
“Grip SSCP is a cybersecurity unicorn-product with its ability to deploy in minutes and provide value from day one,” said James Fritz, CISO at NFP. “The company’s platform improves security but also creates efficiencies and helps reduce overlapping product costs to deliver a clear ROI. With Grip, my teams do in minutes what used to take months.”
“Employees are constantly signing up for new SaaS apps on their own and bypassing the official IT and security processes we have in place,” said Troy Wilkinson, CISO at a Fortune 500 company in the advertising and marketing industry.
“Using apps like OpenAI and other generative AI SaaS tools creates huge risks and the Grip platform provides my team the ability to discover and secure the use of these apps,” Wilkinson added.
“We are excited to continue driving growth for Grip Security by leveraging our strategic ecosystem of more than 450 channel partners,” said Chad Cardenas, CEO of TSG.
“The response to Grip’s story has been overwhelming. The channel community continues to embrace the company’s powerful SaaS Security Control Plane solution, which helps our strategic partners generate both license and service revenue. We are delighted to invest and help the company accelerate and scale its channel strategy to expand its market leadership,” Cardenas concluded.