UPDATED 07:30 EDT / MAY 18 2017

CLOUD

Cloud-native security startup Aporeto lands $11.2M funding round

Aporeto Inc., a “cloud-native” security startup that aims to secure untrusted information technology environments, has just raised $11.2 million in a Series A funding round ahead of its product launch later this year.

The company said it’s launching its services in public beta today, ahead of a full product launch slated for this summer. Aporeto is just the latest of a new breed of security startups to emerge from stealth mode in recent months, touting a solution it claims can secure the deployment of cloud-native applications in any environment. The company said its solution can strengthen and simplify security operations, allowing enterprises to accelerate the deployment of new cloud-based software.

Demand for new security solutions in cloud deployments is being fueled by the growing adoption of software containers, microservices and serverless architectures, Aporeto said. “Enterprise IT organizations need a new breed of tools that will allow them to embrace cloud technologies and DevOps methodologies without sacrificing security,” Dimitri Stiliadis, co-founder and chief executive of Aporeto, said in a statement.

Aporeto’s tools enable this through a whitelist-based approach to security. The company’s solution works by facilitating end-to-end authentication, authorization and encryption for all application components, including virtual machines, containers and microservices, Amir Sharif, cofounder of Aporeto, told SiliconANGLE.

“What this does is it allows security to follow the application anywhere, regardless of network architecture, including traversing the WAN into disparate clouds,” Sharif said.

He explained that Aporeto’s tools work by blocking all interactions between apps and their infrastructure unless there’s a policy that explicitly allows them. These policies can be automatically generated by ingesting application manifest files or observing application behavior. Users can then audit these auto-generated policies to ensure that regularity requirements and organizational security rules are being adhered to, Sharif explained.

“Because Aporeto’s security is embedded in the infrastructure, it makes security invisible and unobstrusive to the developer,” Sharif said. “This allows developers to move fast and focus on core functionality instead of tedious work on meeting security requirements.”

One company that has already benefited from Aporeto’s solution is the enterprise software development firm Informatica LLC. Alec Chattaway, director of cloud operations at Informatica, said it was becoming increasingly critical for development teams to reduce the complexity of securing applications in untrusted environments. “We looked at many security options,” Chattaway said. “We believe Aporeto’s security approach can simplify procedures and enable users to remove unnecessary complexity.”

The new round was led by Norwest Venture Partners, whose managing partner Matthew Howard joins Aporeto’s board of directors. It follows a $3.3 million seed round led by Wing Venture Capital, with participation from Data Collective Venture Capital and private individuals.

Image: martin louis/Flickr

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