A group of prominent investors is betting that San Francisco-based Expanse Inc. can establish itself as a major player in the cybersecurity market.

The startup, formerly known as Qadium, today announced that it has raised a $70 million funding round led by private equity heavyweight TPG Growth. More than a half-dozen other backers joined in as well including New Enterprise Associates, Founders Fund, Peter Thiel, Arianna Huffington and Silver Lake Partners Managing Director Egon Durban.

Expanse sells software that helps large organizations gain a better understanding of their cybersecurity posture. Enterprises’ technology infrastructure is usually spread out over multiple data centers, cloud platforms and edge locations such as overseas offices, which makes it difficult to keep tabs on every single system. The subsequent gaps in visibility give hackers an opening to launch cyberattacks.

Expanse’s flagship Edge Expander platform promises to fill in companies’ blind spots by creating an inventory of all their systems, devices and other internet-connected assets. The software takes an outside-in approach, scanning the open web for assets that may be exposed to the outside world.

Edge Expander can find poorly secured servers and data repositories that are accessible from beyond the corporate firewall. It also identifies unmonitored assets such as abandoned virtual machines in cloud environments or laptops that employees may have brought into the office without administrators’ knowledge. Overall, Expanse claims that it helps customers monitor into anywhere from 3% to 70% more internet-exposed devices than they could otherwise  track.

The startup also sells a second product called Edge Behavior that promises to provide a deeper level of visibility. It can analyze network traffic from the systems mapped out by Expander to help companies pick up on security issues, like if one of their servers is transmitting data somewhere it’s not supposed to.

CVS Health Corp., PayPal Inc. and Capital One Financial Corp. are some of the enterprises that use Expanse’s software to monitor their infrastructure. In addition, the startup has a sizable public-sector installed base that includes the departments of Defense, Energy and State along with all five branches of the U.S. military.

The startup said it will use the new funding to add more international enterprises to its customer roster. In particular, Expanse plans to focus on foreign markets outside the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Japan, where it already maintains a presence. 

Expanse has raised more than $135 million to date.

Photo: Unsplash