BitSight Lands $40M Series C Funding, Looks To Boost Growing Channel, Expand Product Line

BitSight, a security ratings company based in Cambridge, Mass., announced $40 million in Series C funding on Thursday, money it said it would put toward its growing channel, product lineup and acquisitions.

The funding was led by GGV Capital and included participation from Globespan Capital Partners, Menlo Ventures, BitSight CEO Shaun McConnon and Flybridge Capital Partners, Comcast, Liberty Global and Singtel. The funding adds to the $23 million in Series B funding it announced in June 2015 and brings its total funding raised to $89 million.

This latest round comes on the heels of a year of strong growth for BitSight, President and COO Tom Turner told CRN. Turner said the company has grown to 450 customers, up from 53 at the end of 2014. It expects to end the year with between 650 and 700 customers, he said. Sales for the first half of 2016 were double those of the first half of 2015, the company said.

[Related: Cato Networks Lands $30M Series B Funding, Looks To Disrupt Network Security With Help Of Channel]

That growth is driven by a strong need in the security space for continuous measurement of security risk, as well as a rising cyber insurance market, Turner said. As other players start to jump into the security ratings market, Turner said BitSight will leverage the new round of funding to ’continue to lead the market.’

’We intend to keep our foot on the gas and be very in tune with what our customers and partners are telling us about this market. It’s definitely growing and customers are voting with their wallets and building practices and have a need for focus in their vendor risk practice or security practice,’ Turner said.

Gina Ghent, managing director and head of KY3P at IHS Markit, a BitSight partner, said the latest round of funding validates the company’s technology to clients and underscores the importance of ’performing due diligence and ongoing monitoring of their vendors.’

"BitSight's latest round of funding is a testament to the significance and criticality of its security ratings in a global and technology-driven environment where it is needed more than ever‎," Ghent said in an email to CRN.

Turner said BitSight plans to invest in further innovation around its product set, including expansion of its current ratings platform with additional data and context on company risk as well as expanding into risk ratings for fourth-party risk, or the security risk posed by the supply chains of third-party providers.

Turner said BitSight will also look to make acquisitions, something the company is already experienced in after its 2014 acquisition of Anubis Networks. That deal helped BitSight expand into the European market, while adding talent and analytics capabilities.

’This [funding] gives us the ability to be acquisitive if we see the right opportunity in the market,’ Turner said.

Finally, Turner said BitSight plans to invest in its partner ecosystem. The company currently has around 65 partners, he said, and ’we need to have the right resources deployed for that,’ including programmatic elements and how to expand the channel reach into a broader geography internationally.

’For us to truly be a global standard, and that is the goal of the company … channels and partners and routes to market are an extremely important part of how we get to that standard,’ Turner said. ’That’s why, even if we weren’t looking for funding at this time, this is a great war chest to continue to do that,’ he said.