IoT Security Company ZingBox Lands $22M In Funding With Eye On Partner Recruitment

ZingBox, which makes technology that helps secure Internet of Things devices in vertical markets including health care and retail, said Thursday it has raised $22 million in a Series B funding round.

Xu Zou, co-founder and CEO of ZingBox, told CRN via email that the IoT security company will use the funding to accelerate product capabilities, expand its market reach and build out its channel.

’With the additional funding, we intend to grow our existing partnerships as well as recruit additional partners to extend our reach and meet the growing demand for our market-leading solution," Zou said.

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The Series B funding round was led by Dell Technologies Capital and Tri Ventures, which join other ZingBox investors Stanford Start-X, GSR Ventures, Oriza Ventures and Envision Ventures.

"We are honored by the support Dell Technologies Capital and Triventures have instilled in us. … Their faith in our device personality approach to IoT security reaffirms our vision and strategy of offering a revolutionary solution designed from the ground up to address the unique security challenges of IoT," said Zou.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company's flagship product is its detection tool, IoT Guardian, which the company said is the industry’s only IoT security solution based on device "personalities."

IoT Guardian leverages machine-learning capabilities to discover and assess risk and baseline normal behavior, detect anomalous activities and provide real-time monitoring across customers' IoT devices.

The patent-pending offering understands each IoT device’s personality, analyzing communication to and from every device, watching for deviations in behavior, and providing alerts for suspicious behavior.

’Dell Technologies Capital invests in innovative founders and companies that can utilize our technical resources and unique go-to-market channels to bring their breakthrough technology to customers around the globe,’ said Raman Khanna, managing director of Dell Technologies Capital, in a statement.

"As more and more hospitals, retailers and businesses deploy IoT solutions, security is top of mind and ZingBox’s machine-learning approach to IoT security helps them address this fundamental challenge," said Khanna.

ZingBox was founded in 2014 by Zou, May Wang and Jianlin Zeng – all of whom have backgrounds in cybersecurity, IoT and networking.

Moving forward, Zou hopes to continue to invest in the company's channel.

’Teaming up with our channel partners to deliver the best IoT security solution to our customers continues to be one of our key initiatives. We are proud to say that 100 percent of our business today is conducted through our channel partners," Zou told CRN.