Exabeam Lands $25M In Series B Funding, Looks To Go Global With Products And Partners

Exabeam, a security startup focusing on the user behavior analytics space, said Tuesday that it had landed $25 million in Series B funding, money that co-founder and CEO Nir Polak said will be used to fuel growth and invest in its channel partners.

The latest funding round was led by new investor Icon Ventures, which also was a major investor in Palo Alto Networks and FireEye. It was joined by existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Aspect Ventures and Shlomo Kramer, a founder of Check Point Software Technologies and early investor in Trusteer and Palo Alto Networks.

Justin Morehouse, founder and principal of Herndon, Va.-based GuidePoint Security, an Exabeam partner, said in an email that the funding shows the growing importance of user behavior and analytics technologies in the security market.

[Related: Summer Of Security: 15 Hot Startups That Reeled In Funding]

"As attacks are continuously becoming more advanced, traditional security controls only provide part of the picture necessary to adequately respond. When you pair this with organizations' rapid adoption of big data, taking a data-centric approach to detecting and responding to security is logical," Morehouse said.

The latest round of funding brings the company's total amount raised to $35 million and adds critical industry experience through the appointment of Icon Ventures general partner Jeb Miller to its board of directors. That will be key to continuing to accelerate growth, Polak said.

"Money is easier to get, value is not as easy to get," Polak said. "You're looking for someone not just for the brand that they bring with them but the person ... who has seen a lot of success and failures in the security industry."

Polak said the funding will, in part, be put toward fueling international growth for the company, targeting Australia, Japan, Singapore and Europe. Exabeam has already been "moving at light speed" in the North American market, though Polak declined to be specific about the company's growth numbers.

Exabeam also will put some of the new capital into expanding its product portfolio, Polak said. Last week, Exabeam unveiled its Exabeam Version 2.0, which added machine learning capabilities to respond to online account lockouts.

Finally, Polak said a key area of investment for Exabeam will be in its partner ecosystem. Exabeam is a 100 percent channel company. Polak said the company is planning to hire additional channel account managers in the East, West and EMEA at the beginning of next year as well as adding marketing staff.

"With team, technology and go-to-market strategy we're really able to provide a lot of good success stories, and I think that the channel sees that and we see the interest coming from their customers and reacting to the technology in a very favorable way," Polak said. "It's just a further acceleration."

PUBLISHED SEPT. 29, 2015