10 Hot Startups That Raised VC Funding In September
Follow The Money
Emerging technologies are continuing to drive many of the most important venture capital rounds for the enterprise world and IT channel. Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, containers and converged infrastructure were just a few of the themes running across our list of top VC deals in September. Meanwhile, some of the biggest rounds went to up and comers in storage, such as the $60 million Series D funding for Datrium and the $68 million round for Wasabi.
What follows are our picks for 10 IT startups to watch that landed new funding in September.
Datrium
Headquarters: Sunnyvale, Calif.
CEO: Tim Page
Funding: $60 million, Series D
Investors: Samsung Catalyst Fund (led the round), Icon Ventures, NEA, Lightspeed Venture Partners
What it does: Specializes in providing high-performance unified hybrid primary and secondary storage via converged server and data nodes
CEO Quote: "Enterprises globally have the same problems in simplifying compute and data management across on-prem and cloud. Where SANs don't even have a path to cloud, traditional HCI has too many tradeoffs for core data centers – backup requires separate purchasing and administration, and cloud DR automation is seldom guaranteed. Larger enterprises are realizing that Datrium software offers them a simpler path."
GitLab
Headquarters: San Francisco
CEO: Sid Sijbrandij
Funding: $100 million, Series D
Investors: Iconiq Capital
What it does: Offers tools for source code management as well as project planning, continuous integration/continous delivery and monitoring
CEO Quote: "Since raising a Series C round last year, we've delivered on our commitment to bring a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle to market, and as a result have been able to reach over $1 billion in valuation. With this latest funding round, we will continue to build out our management, planning, packaging, deployment, configuration, monitoring and security features for a more robust DevOps application."
Hypergrid
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
CEO: Nariman Teymourian
Funding: $25 million, Series C
Investors: HighBar Partners and Atlantic Bridge Capital (co-led the round), Acero Capital
What it does: Provider of software for hybrid cloud management, which can be deployed in cloud or on-premises environments
CEO Quote: "Our completeness of vision, our team and differentiated technology have been well-received within the market. With the help of our investment partners, we will look to expand the reach of our cloud expertise and industry-leading hybrid cloud management solution to help businesses around the globe with cloud adoption."
Instana
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.
CEO: Mirko Novakovic
Funding: $30 million, Series C
Investors: Meritech Capital (led the round), Accel
What it does: Offers solutions for performance management of containerized microservice applications, with a focus on using automation and artificial intelligence technologies
CEO Quote: "Instana has a steadfast commitment to delivering innovative monitoring built for modern dynamic application environments. The addition of Meritech to Instana's existing investors, Accel and Target Partners, is a tremendous endorsement of our strategy and success, highlighted by rapid customer adoption and global annual sales growth of more than 600% in our last fiscal quarter. We're thrilled to have such a strong set of investors and thought leaders supporting Instana.”
IoTium
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
CEO: Ron Victor
Funding: $13.6 million, Series B
Investors: March Capital Partners (led the round), Honeywell Ventures, Former Cisco CEO John Chambers' JC2 Ventures, Hanna Ventures, GE Ventures, Juniper Ventures
What it does: Developer of software-defined converged infrastructure solutions—combining security, networking and edge computing—for the industrial Internet of Things
CEO Quote: "Our vision for Software-Defined Converged Infrastructure solutions for IIoT is based on the learning that both flexibility and simplicity are equally important in approaching Industry 4.0. Organizations must combine elements of security, network, and edge computing in a multi-tenanted, scalable and open way to realize their deployment. Our customers and investors recognize that we are the only commercially deployed zero-touch solution to bring these elements together."
Nodle
Headquarters: San Francisco
CEO: Micha Benoliel
Funding: $1.5 million
Investors: Blockchange Ventures (led the round), Blockhead Capital, Bootstrap Labs, Olymp Capital, Work Play Ventures, Yeoman's Capital
What it does: Developer of a low-cost, low-power Internet of Things network; technology relies on smartphone apps running Nodle's software to act as nodes on the network
CEO Quote: "The Nodle connectivity solution is simple, plug and play, and global. The main issue IoT deployments face is that it is difficult — and expensive — to connect remote devices to the internet."
Nozomi Networks
Headquarters: San Francisco
CEO: Edgard Capdevielle
Funding: $30 million, Series C
Investors: Giovanni Canetta Roeder (led the round), Planven Investments SA, GGV Capital, Lux Capital, Energize Ventures, THI Investments
What it does: Provider of industrial cybersecurity solutions, with a focus on bringing real-time visibility for managing cyber risk
CEO Quote: "The backing of all our existing investors so quickly after our previous round is tremendous validation that the time for Nozomi Networks is now. While 2018 has been a year of great attention on industrial vulnerabilities, 2019 will be the year the industry takes greater action to secure the world's critical infrastructure."
Sysdig
Headquarters: San Francisco
CEO: Suresh Vasudevan
Funding: $68.5 million, Series D
Investors: Insight Venture Partners (led the round), Bain Capital Ventures, Accel
What it does: Offers a platform for enterprises to operate and secure their containerized infrastructure and cloud-native applications
CEO Quote: "Enterprises are adopting cloud-native technology for its speed of development, multi-cloud scaling capabilities, and lower total cost of ownership. But, they are hitting roadblocks with old school security and monitoring products. To be successful, these organizations need new solutions that are cloud-native. Sysdig has emerged as the only solution that delivers enterprises the complete set of capabilities needed to protect an environment, ensure that it is running smoothly, and meet compliance requirements. Sysdig delivers it all, both in the cloud and on-premise, in order to grow with companies as they undertake this journey."
Tamr
Headquarters: Cambridge, Mass.
CEO: Andy Palmer
Funding: $10 million
Investors: Pear Tree Partners, Granite Hill Capital Partners
What it does: Provides advanced data unification solutions that use machine learning capabilities, such as agile data mastering and classification
CEO Quote: "We've had a record start to 2018. With our round of funding now complete and the addition of highly experienced new Board Observers, we're on-track to continue our rapid growth as we redefine how companies solve intractable data unification challenges."
Wasabi
Headquarters: Boston
CEO: David Friend
Funding: $68 million
Investors: Forestay Capital, unnamed individuals and family offices
What it does: Provides a cloud storage service that promises to store data six times faster than can be done with Amazon S3, while charging only one-fifth of S3's price
CEO Quote: "The Series B financing will allow Wasabi to expand internationally, continue to invest in our brand, and enable us to compete for the largest storage deals in the world. Our objective is to make Wasabi into one of the world's most renowned cloud storage vendors … Fueled by our new funding from prominent entrepreneurs, financiers, and family offices, Wasabi will go global this year and cloud storage will become a utility like bandwidth or electricity – it will be cheap, fast and available everywhere."