Breach simulation startup AttackIQ raises $44M to fuel expansion

AttackIQ, a cybersecurity startup that provides organizations with breach and attack simulation solutions, has raised $44 million in Series C funding as it looks to ramp up its international expansion.

The funding round was led by Atlantic Bridge, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures (SAEV) and Gaingels, with existing vendors — including Index Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and Telstra Ventures — also participating. The round brings the company’s total funding raised to date to $79 million. 

AttackIQ was founded in 2013 and is based out of San Diego, California. It provides an automated validation platform that runs scenarios to detect any gaps in a company’s defenses, enabling organizations to test and measure the effectiveness of their security posture and receive guidance on how to fix what’s broken. Broadly, AttackIQ’s platform helps an organization’s security teams anticipate, prepare and hunt for threats that may impact their business, before hackers get there first.

Its Security Optimization Platform platform, which supports Windows, Linux and macOS across public, private and on-premises cloud environments, is based on the MITRE ATT&CK framework, a curated knowledge base of known adversary threats, tactics and techniques. This is used by a number of cybersecurity companies also building continuous validation services, including FireEye, Palo Alto Networks and Cymulate.

AttackIQ says this latest round of funding, which comes more than two years after its last, arrives at a “dynamic time” for the company. Not only has cybersecurity become more of a priority for organizations as a result of a major uptick in both ransomware and supply-chain attacks, the company also recently accelerated its international expansion efforts through a partnership with technology distributor Westcon.

The startup says it’s planning to use these new funds to further expand internationally through its newfound partnership with Atlantic Bridge, which will also see Kevin Dillon, the company’s co-founder and managing director, join the AttackIQ board of directors. 

“AttackIQ has established itself as a category leader with a formidable enterprise customer base that includes four of the Fortune 20,” said Dillon. “We believe deeply in the company’s vision and potential to become the next billion-dollar cybersecurity software company and look forward to helping the company turn early traction in Europe and the Middle East into robust, long-term expansion.”

Brett Galloway, CEO of AttackIQ, said the round “reaffirms the strength” of its platform.

As well as enabling organizations to review the robustness of their security defenses, the startup also runs the AttackIQ Academy, which provides free entry-level and advanced cybersecurity training. It has accumulated 17,200 registered students to date across 176 countries.

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