10 Cool Startups That Got VC Funding In January

Follow The Money

Whether or not you agree with the saying "data is the new oil," there is certainly a lot of money available right now for improving how businesses handle their data. January saw three massive funding rounds go to privately held companies in the data management and data governance sectors—with Veeam pulling in $500 million, Rubrik raising $261 million and Collibra adding $100 million. Meanwhile, several up-and-coming cybersecurity startups hauled in new rounds last month, led by a $100 million Series D for unified access management vendor OneLogin.

What follows are our picks for 10 IT startups to watch that landed new funding in January.

Alation

Headquarters: Redwood City, Calif.

CEO: Satyen Sangani

Funding: $50 million, Series C

Investors: Sapphire Ventures (led the round), Salesforce Ventures and existing investors Costanoa Ventures, DCVC, Harmony Partners, Icon Ventures

What it does: Developer of data catalog technology that locates and indexes data that may be scattered across multiple sources within an organization

CEO Quote: "With the rise of self-service analytics, the Alation Data Catalog has become the crucial single-source of reference for organizations seeking to be data-driven, allowing everyone from the business user to the data scientist to find the data they need and understand whether it is right for the analysis at hand. With the support of Sapphire, Salesforce, and our existing investors, we’re confident that we’ll continue to accelerate our company growth and meet the growing demand for data catalogs around the globe."

Aporeto

Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.

CEO: Jason Schmitt

Funding: $20 million, Series B

Investors: Comcast Ventures (led the round), Wing VC, Norwest Venture Partners, National Grid Partners, Telia Ventures

What it does: Provider of a zero-trust security solution for cloud applications, containers and microservices, which encrypts all communications with an identity for each workload

CEO Quote: "The market is recognizing that cloud adoption is compromising the effectiveness of last-generation network security tools designed for static data centers and IP addresses. The automation, flexibility and scale of cloud environments demand identity-based security that can adapt dynamically and secure absolutely. We’re really excited about the incredible quality of the new investors joining Aporeto and the tremendous market validation and geographic expansion that they bring to our team."

Cato Networks

Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel

CEO: Shlomo Kramer

Funding: $55 million

Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners (led the round), Aspect Ventures, Greylock Partners, Singtel Innov8, USVP, co-founders Shlomo Kramer and Gur Shatz

What it does: Offers a cloud-native enterprise network with built-in security, wide-area networking (WAN) optimization and SD-WAN

CEO Quote: "Cato goes beyond edge SD-WAN, MPLS, and network security point solutions, to offer a full WAN transformation platform. Cato closes the huge gap between the needs of the digital business, and the rigid, slow, and expensive networks provided by legacy telcos, using a groundbreaking cloud-native carrier architecture. Cato is powered by cloud-scale software, self-service management, and elastic compute and bandwidth to provide the new foundation for the growth of the business."

Collibra

Headquarters: New York

CEO: Felix Van de Maele

Funding: $100 million, Series E

Investors: CapitalG (led the round), ICONIQ Capital, Battery Ventures, Dawn Capital, Index Ventures

What it does: Provider enterprise data governance and catalog software that can be deployed in the cloud or on premises

CEO Quote: "This investment is a testament to Collibra’s leadership and our ability to help customers transform their market proposition through data-driven insight. With this latest round, we are well-positioned to leverage our heritage in understanding data to help our customers utilize the most cutting-edge innovation to power their digital transformation journeys."

Fortanix

Headquarters: Mountain View, Calif.

CEO: Ambuj Kumar

Funding: $23 million, Series B

Investors: Intel Capital (led the round), Foundation Capital, Neotribe

What it does: Provider of a "runtime encryption" solution that protects data during runtime from cloud providers, insiders, government subpoena and hackers

CEO Quote: "Fortanix uniquely helps protect encryption keys, databases, machine learning algorithms, and containers to help secure organizations’ data in private, public and hybrid cloud environments. This new funding is a testament to the tremendous growth we’ve already experienced in 18 months since we first launched our product."

OneLogin

Headquarters: San Francisco

CEO: Brad Brooks

Funding: $100 million, Series D

Investors: Greenspring Associates and Silver Lake Waterman (led the round), CRV, Scale Venture Partners, Blue Cloud Ventures

What it does: Provides a Unified Access Management solution that manages access for both Software-as-a-Service and on-premises application environments in a unified manner

CEO Quote: "Every business needs Unified Access Management, and our solution is mission critical for all of our customers across both cloud and hybrid cloud environments. Our relentless focus on customer service coupled with this significant capital infusion supports OneLogin’s ongoing growth and investment."

Pliops

Headquarters: Ramat Gan, Israel

CEO: Uri Beitler

Funding: SoftBank Ventures Asia (led the round), Western Digital Capital, Xilinx, Intel Capital, State of Mind Ventures, Viola Ventures

Investors: $30 million, Series B

What it does: Developer of storage processor technology for cold storage and database applications

CEO Quote: "Businesses must scale their infrastructures in the face of skyrocketing data volumes, and we're excited to help them. Pliops' technology transforms storage so that organizations achieve more consistent, readily-scaled performance with a simplified software stack. We are proud to have achieved the backing of such esteemed leading investors and to see early market traction."

Rubrik

Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.

CEO: Bipul Sinha

Funding: $261 million, Series E

Investors: Bain Capital Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures, IVP

What it does: Developer of cloud data management technology for simplified backup and recovery, faster cloud adoption and improved automation

CEO Quote: "Our previous fundraising in 2017 was focused on global expansion and increasing our reach into the enterprise market. Now, with thousands of customers around the world, industry-leading customer satisfaction ratings, and numerous analyst and industry awards, we have customers asking us to solve new challenges. This new capital will speed the introduction of exciting new products in 2019 that will solve those customer challenges and significantly expand our strategic footprint in the enterprise."

Sonrai Security

Headquarters: New York

CEO: Brendan Hannigan

Funding: $18.5 million, Series A

Investors: Polaris Partners and TenEleven Ventures (led the round), New Brunswick Innovation Foundation

What it does: Offers a "cloud data control" service that provides a risk model of all identity and data relationships, ultimately protecting against data security threats and boosting DevOps efficiency

CEO Quote: "Cloud adoption affords us a unique opportunity to reimagine how we secure corporate data, and to make a clean break from the limitations of device, data center and perimeter centric security. By putting data and identity at the center of a security model that spans cloud providers and third-party data stores, Sonrai Security offers a level of control and security never possible in a traditional enterprise network."

Veeam

Headquarters: Baar, Switzerland

Co-Founder: Ratmir Timashev

Funding: $500 million

Investors: Insight Venture Partners (led the round), Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

What it does: Provider of data protection software that enables "intelligent data management" for both public and private cloud

Co-Founder Quote: "Veeam is leading the data management space, with more than 325,000 customers, 60,000 partners, 82 percent of the Fortune 500 relying on our solutions, and with industry analysts heralding us as leaders across all sectors; with Insight and CPPIB’s, investment I know we will take this to the next level."