10 Cool Tech Companies That Raised Funding In November 2021
Next-generation technology developers in cloud, application code and IoT security; data management and business analytics; and AI and healthcare IT were among the startup companies that reported new rounds of funding in November.
Follow The Money
Startups pushing technology boundaries in cloud, IoT and DevSecOps cybersecurity were among the companies that attracted venture funding in November.
Four of the top five companies in this month’s Follow the Money list, including Lacework, Armis and Contrast Security, are all startups in the cybersecurity space. Data management platform developer Collibra and managed detection and response tech developer Expel rounded out the top five.
Also making the list for November are hot startups in master data management, cloud business analytics, AI and healthcare automation.
What follows are our picks for 10 cool tech startups that landed new funding in November.
Lacework
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
Co-CEOs: David Hatfield (pictured) and Jay Parikh
Funding: The $1.3 billion Series D funding round put Lacework’s valuation at $8.3 billion, making it the third most valuable venture-backed cybersecurity company in the world.
Investors: The round was led by Sutter Hill Ventures, Altimeter Capital, D1 Capital Partners and Tiger Global Management with participation from new investors Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Durable Capital, Franklin Templeton, General Catalyst and XN, and participation from existing investors Coatue, Dragoneer, Liberty Global Ventures and Snowflake Ventures.
What company does: Laceworks provides automated cloud security for workloads and containers running on the major cloud platforms.
CEO Quote: “Our growth over the last 36 months reflects the pain many businesses endure as they attempt to navigate the cloud using security products that simply aren’t designed for it. This investment, and the partnership of these long-term investors, will help us realize Lacework’s promise of becoming the most trusted cloud security platform.”
Armis
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.
CEO: Yevgeny Dibrov
Funding: The $300 million round brings the company’s total funding to $537 million and puts its valuation at $3.4 billion.
Investors: The funding round was led by One Equity partners with participation from existing investors.
What company does: Armis develops a unified asset visibility and security platform used to secure devices in IoT, industrial OT, healthcare and more.
CEO Quote: “One Equity Partners is the exact type of investor we need at this juncture. They deeply understand our sector and their acquisition expertise will help support us in achieving our expansion goals and objectives. We look forward to OEP joining our board and working with our investor group to continue to scale and to acquire a number of strategically important assets.”
Collibra
Headquarters: New York
CEO: Felix Van de Maele
Funding: The $250 million Series G round of funding more than doubled the company’s valuation to $5.25 billion.
Investors: Sequoia Capital Global Equities and Sofina led the latest funding round with participation from new investor Tiger Global Management and existing investors Battery Ventures, Capital G, Dawn Capital, Durable Capital Partners LP, ICONIQ Capital and Index Ventures.
What company does: The Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud’s capabilities span data catalog, data governance, data privacy, data quality and observability, and data lineage functionality.
CEO Quote: “We are seeing overwhelming demand for our platform, and the interest from the investor community further validates our approach to helping our customers drive value from their own data. We are the only company in the industry that provides a single, fully integrated cloud-native platform to enable customers to accelerate their digital transformation journey.”
Contrast Security
Headquarters: Los Altos, Calif.
CEO: Alan Naumann
Funding: The $150 million Series E round of funding boosted the company’s valuation over the $1 billion threshold.
Investors: The funding round was led Liberty Strategic Capital, the private equity fund founded by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. All of Contrast Security’s existing investors participated in the round including Warburg Pincus, Battery Ventures, General Catalyst, Microsoft’s M-12 Fund, AXA Venture Partners and Acero Capital.
What company does: Contrast Security is a leading company in the DevSecOps space, providing its Contrast Application Security Platform for securing software code throughout the application lifecycle. The technology instruments applications with sensors that detect security vulnerabilities in code and protects applications against attack.
CEO Quote: “The global economy is running on software applications. We are now seeing business leaders, including Microsoft and Google, commit publicly to spend billions of dollars in order to decrease cybersecurity risks in today’s fast paced application economy. Supported by President Biden’s recent executive order, our customers, governments, and many of the world‘s largest companies are investing in prevention and resilience against software cyber-attacks.”
Expel
Headquarters: Herndon, Va.
CEO: Dave Merkel
Funding: The $140.3 million Series E funding round, which brings Expel’s total funding to $257.9 million, boosts the company’s valuation to over $1 billion.
Investors: The round was co-led by Capital G (Alphabet’s independent growth fund) and Paladin Capital Group – both repeat lead investors. Participants included new investors Cisco Investments and March Capital and existing investors Index Ventures, Scale Venture Partners and Greycroft.
What company does: Expel develops managed detection and response (MDR) security technology.
CEO Quote: “We’ve had great success thus far, and we see massive opportunity in the future for what we do. CapitalG is really investing in companies that have truly massive global potential.”
Reltio
Headquarters: Redwood City, Calif.
CEO: Chris Hylen
Funding: The $120 million funding round increased Reltio’s total funding to $237 million and raised its value to approximately $1.7 billion.
Investors: The round was led by Brighton Park Capital with participation from existing investors Crosslink Capital, NewView Capital, RPS Ventures, Sapphire Ventures and .406 Ventures.
What company does: Reltio develops a Software-as-a-Service master data management platform and data integration hub.
CEO Quote: “This investment underscores the significance of the data management category in today’s digital data-driven environment and is validation of the larger market opportunity in front of us. Building on our rapid growth, this investment will further accelerate our path to deliver high-value data to customers and to become a world-class, Rule of 40+ SaaS company.”
ThoughtSpot
Headquarters: Sunnyvale, Calif.
CEO: Sudheesh Nair
Funding: The $100 million Series F funding round brings ThoughtSpot’s total funding to $674 million and puts its value at $4.2 billion.
Investors: The round was led by new investor March Capital with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Ventures, Snowflake Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Fidelity, Capital One Ventures, General Catalyst, Sapphire Ventures and GIC.
What company does: ThoughtSpot develops a cloud-based, search- and AI-driven business analytics platform.
CEO Quote: “Our customers rely on us to break free from the tyranny of averages as they build their businesses on data. Today’s funding shows just how valuable the work we do with our customers truly has become.”
H2O.ai
Headquarters: Mountain View, Calif.
CEO: Sri Ambati
Funding: The $100 million Series E round of funding brought the company’s total funding to more than $250 million and raised its valuation to $1.7 billion.
Investors: The funding round was led by Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Australia’s largest bank, along with Pivot Investment Partners and existing investors Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Crane Venture Partners.
What company does: H2O.ai develops the H2O AI Cloud that brings the company’s artificial intelligence and machine learning products together on a unified cloud platform.
CEO Quote: “Commonwealth Bank and H2O.ai are led by our core belief that we can make the world better by serving our communities and customers with AI. This strategic partnership between the leading global AI cloud movement and Australia’s largest bank will unleash the juggernaut of co-innovation and will further democratize AI with trust and freedom.”
Yellowbrick Data
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.
CEO: Neil Carson
Funding: The Series C1 round of funding totaled $75 million.
Investors: The round added three new investors including institutional investor Citadel – which is also a Yellowbrick customer. (Yellowbrick did not name the other two new investors.) Also participating were existing investors Third Point Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Next47, DFJ Growth, Threshold Ventures, GV and IVP.
What company does: Yellowbrick develops data warehouse and disaster recovery systems and cloud services built around the company’s MPP (massively parallel processing) analytic database.
CEO Quote: “Time and time again, customers are telling us that they can no longer tolerate the unbounded expense of consumption-based billing, especially vendors that force advanced purchase of ‘credits’ like Snowflake. Customers much prefer our modern Kubernetes-based, truly cloud-native architecture, which allows a choice of pricing models.”
Notable
Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.
CEO: Pranay Kapadia
Funding: The company announced a $100 million Series B round of funding.
Investors: The round was led by ICONIQ Growth with participation by Greylock, F-Prime Capital and Oak HC/FT.
What company does: Notable develops an intelligent automation platform for the healthcare industry, providing fully managed digital assistants that use AI and RPA to perform repetitive administrative and clinical tasks.
CEO Quote: “Healthcare faces a staffing crisis, and overwhelming administrative burden challenges providers’ ability to deliver high-quality, affordable care and world-class patient experiences. This investment accelerates the execution of our vision to digitally transform and enrich patient-provider interactions with intelligent automation.”