Mocana Corp., a major provider of security software for connected devices, today announced that it has raised $15 million in funding to boost its expansion and product development efforts.

San Francisco-based venture capital firm Sway Ventures led the round. The fund, which also counts Uber Technologies Inc. among its investments, was joined by Shasta Ventures and ForgePoint Capital. The trio previously backed a $11 million round into Mocana in 2017 that also saw General Electric Co. come aboard as an investor.

GE is one of the more than 200 manufacturers and technology firms that use the company’s software to secure their devices. Mocana, which has been in business since 2002, claims that its products help protect some 100 million internet-connected systems ranging from power plant machinery to fighter jets.

Mocana’s flagship offering is an embedded security toolkit dubbed TrustPoint. The software can be loaded directly onto connected devices, including low-powered systems like smart parking meters, to provide essential breach prevention features. This effectively lets endpoints autonomously defend themselves to a certain degree. 

TrustPoint enables devices to encrypt sensitive data, authenticate themselves when connecting to a company’s backend infrastructure and transmit data via cryptographic network protocols such as SSH. The software also has a secure boot feature to protect against tempering attempts. TrustPoint checks each piece of software on devices when they’re turned on to make sure that they haven’t been modified.

Last year, Mocana launched a second product called TrustCenter. It helps companies centrally manage their TrustPoint-powered devices and automate tasks such as rolling out security patches.

Mocana said that it will use the funding to build out more features for TrustCenter. Later this year, the company plans to add new capabilities that will allow organizations to monitor more closely the software processes running on their connected devices. Mocana also plans to hire more people in sales, marketing and support with an eye to international markets.

The company is competing in an increasingly crowded field. In the past year, both Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have launched services designed to help enterprises protect their connected devices. There are also smaller, venture-backed providers such as Claroty Ltd. that offer security software geared specifically geared toward industrial systems.

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