Perimeter 81, which develops technology for secure remote access to enterprise networks, announced today that it had raised $10 million. Leading the financing round was cybersecurity and firewalls company SonicWall, a US company controlled by Francisco Partners, as part of the collaboration between the two companies. Also participating in the round were investors from Perimeter 81's previous $5 million financing round, closed last March: Spring Ventures and private investors.
CEO Amit Bareket and CPO Sagi Gidali, veterans of the IDF Intelligence Corps, founded Perimeter 81 in 2018. Bareket and Gidali also founded SaferVPN, sold to J2 for several million dollars.
According to Perimeter 81's announcement, while SaferVPN developed popular VPN services, Perimeter 81's technology is designed to replace ordinary security solutions like VPN. This technology is used to secure enterprise networks, including cloud assets and physical servers owned by the enterprise, through the zero trust method, meaning that providing access is based on authentication of identity, not trust.
"We began thinking about the idea of Perimeter 81 in 2017, because of two current trends among enterprises," Gidali says. "One is the transition to cloud infrastructure. Many companies are starting to rely on cloud infrastructure, such as AWS. The second trend is a dispersed labor force working from home in various locations around the globe, and even from the beach. These employees need access to the enterprise's resources, which are currently located both on the enterprise's server farms and on the cloud. We have created a platform that provides easy and simple access to the enterprise resources in an SaaS model."
The company has developed a mechanism that creates networks at the push of a button according to an enterprise's needs. Every such virtual network provides access to different work environments in the enterprise, so that every user can enjoy secure remote access to the enterprise resources relevant to him or her. Furthermore, a security and access policy can be established on the platform for each user according to his or her needs and authorizations. The network on which the company's product is based was developed over six years in SaferVPN, and is now being applied by the new company.
Cooperation with SonicWall is designed to create interaction between SonicWall's security services and Perimeter 81's network. "This is designed to replace the physical firewall, because all of the firewall elements can be created virtually on the cloud," Gidali says.
According to Gidali, cooperation will give the two companies an advantage in the current race on the IT networks cloud. A report last August by research and consulting company Gartner defined a new field called secure access service edge (SASE), which refers to secure access based on software adapted to cloud and hybrid networks. This emphases end computing and providing or blocking access to enterprise resources for specific users.
"Like other major companies in the field, SonicWall is in a race to find this solution first," Gidali adds. "Many companies like Check Point and Palo Alto Networks are going in the same direction, because the market is now shifting from hardware to software, a market that is suitable for the cloud. Our goal is to put together all of the services, both security and the network, in one platform. Cooperation will enable us to achieve the company's vision and create a joint network and security product, thereby attaining far faster and more aggressive growth."
Perimeter 81's revenue has grown 400% since last year, and amounts to millions of dollars in 2019. The company has also increased its customer base from 180 to 500 in the past 11 months. Perimeter 81 does not disclose who its customers are, but says that Fortune 500 companies are among them, and that it serves companies in diverse sectors, among them health, media, and finance.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 21, 2019
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