Venture capitalCloudLock, a cloud security specialist, raises $16.5 million Series C round

Published 27 February 2014

CloudLock, a cloud security specialist, has raised $16.5 million in a Series C funding round from new investor Bessemer Venture Partners, and participation of existing investors Cedar Fund and Ascent Venture Partners. The company says that 2013 saw continuing growth in adoption by cloud-bound organizations of the company’s people-centric security automation approach, with a pure SaaS content-aware and policy-based solution, by companies in different verticals, across multiple cloud platforms like Google Apps and Salesforce.

CloudLock, a cloud security specialist, announced it has raised $16.5 million in a Series C funding round from new investor Bessemer Venture Partners, and participation of existing investors Cedar Fund and Ascent Venture Partners.

The company says that 2013 saw continuing growth in adoption by cloud-bound organizations of the company’s people-centric security automation approach, with a pure SaaS content-aware and policy-based solution, by companies in different verticals, across multiple cloud platforms like Google Apps and Salesforce. CloudLock says its solution allows customers to enforce their own security, governance, and compliance requirements, on their data and users in the cloud, without reducing the functionality of the platforms they protect or disrupting the end-user experience.

“As corporate data begins to live on the cloud, the question of managing and securing data has become one of paramount concern. IT departments now struggle to gain the visibility and control they had when data and applications lived on-premise. That’s where CloudLock comes in.” said Bob Goodman, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “We think they have the right product at the right time and the right people to make Cloudlock a success.”

“Very few investors understand the cloud and security as well as Bessemer does and we could not be more thrilled to add Bob and the rest of the Bessemer team to the CloudLock family. Bessemer’s vision of the cloud as the backbone of a business, and track record of funding the companies that enable this innovation, is a perfect match for CloudLock and our goal of providing the cloud security fabric enterprises need”, said Gil Zimmermann, CEO & Co-founder of CloudLock. ”From our initial roots as a Cedar Fund Pre-Seed company, through our expansion with Ascent Venture partners, and now with Bessemer, we have always sought out partners and investors that share our passion and belief that the cloud is transformative for businesses on all levels. The cloud transformation has only just begun. We have big plans to execute from here that will see investments in building out our world class sales, marketing, and engineering organizations to bring even more value, across more platforms, to a fast growing market.”

CloudLock was launched in 2011, and now has more than 600 paying customers.

“The cloud is a critical piece in our enterprise collaboration strategy. As the Chief Information Security Officer of Whirlpool Corporation, it is my responsibility to ensure that our organization’s users and data are protected in the cloud while optimizing their mobility, collaboration, and productivity. We’ve found that CloudLock’s solution delivers enterprise-level capabilities, and the ability to scale to serve our 27,000 employees. CloudLock provides us with more advanced security capabilities at a lower cost than we could achieve on-premise,” said John Bingham, Chief Information Security Officer at Whirlpool.

CloudLock says it will use this Series C funding to expand in new markets, invest in existing and expanded product lines, and grow its operations in the United States, Europe, and Israel.

“We invested in the founding team of CloudLock at the inception of the company. I am happy to see the team develop and execute, positioning CloudLock as the leader in cloud security. We are excited to continue to back this team as both the company and market expand,” said Amnon Shoham, General Partner at Cedar Fund.

“The transition to cloud-based apps and collaboration forced a reset in the model for enterprise security and governance,” said Luke Burns, partner, Ascent Venture Partners. “Gil and the team at CloudLock were pioneers in this field, offering enterprise grade protection without compromising the flexibility and functionality of the cloud. With growing market awareness and an accelerating rate of enterprise adoption, CloudLock is on an exciting growth trajectory and we are thrilled to continue to support the Company with this financing.”