Cybersecurity startup Devo Inc. today said that it has raised $60 million in fresh funding to accelerate its growth plans and also appointed a new chief executive to lead the effort.

The funding was provided by noted venture capital firms Georgian Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Insight Partners. The new CEO is IBM Corp. veteran Marc van Zadelhoff, who is credited with co-founding the company’s multibillion-dollar IBM Security cybersecurity division. He also served as the unit’s general manager. 

Cambridge, Massachusett-based Devo provides a SIEM platform that is used by organizations such as Accenture plc and the U.S. Air Force to support their cybersecurity operations. SIEM, which stands for security information and event management, is a category of software tools designed to help detect breaches in large networks. SIEM platforms aggregate alerts generated by an organization’s various security tools in a centralized data lake so administrators can scan those alerts for suspicious activity.

Centralizing operations in this way eases administrators’ work because they don’t have to switch between different tools. But there are still challenges, which Devo says its platform can address.

One common challenge is data retention. In large companies, the internal SIEM platform often collects so many alerts that they have to be discarded every few weeks to avoid running out of storage space, which can lead to the loss of important security information.

To solve that issue, Devo delivers its SIEM as a cloud service and allows companies to store alerts for years. The startup says that the more complete data set gives administrators a clearer picture of hacker activity when they’re investigating breaches. 

Devo also provides built-in artificial intelligence development tools that allow enterprises to deploy threat detection models atop its SIEM platform. For common use cases, the startup offers pre-built neural networks that companies can customize by training them on their internal security alerts. For savvier organizations looking to build threat-hunting models from scratch, Devo provides a component called Devo Server that allows custom neural networks to be run as Docker containers.

The startup says strong demand for its platform lifted revenue more than 80% in the second quarter year-over-year, though it didn’t reveal specific revenue levels. Devo’s customer base grew 48% in the same period. 

With the new funding, the startup plans to grow its U.S. workforce by 25% before the end of 2020 and expand “all aspects of the business.”

Photo: Devo