Automated network assurance startup IP Fabric Inc. received a big boost today as it closed on a $25 million round of funding.

The Series B round was led by One Peak and saw the participation of Senovo and Presto Ventures.

IP Fabric presents itself as a leader in the growing network assurance space, helping organizations overcome the complexity of their sprawling internal networking infrastructure, improve security and ensure that automation proceeds without a hitch.

As the company explains, the private network infrastructure operated by companies today is actually bigger than that of the public internet, forming the backbone of today’s economies. Because these networks have grown so big, it has become impossible for human operators to understand and manage by themselves. So companies have resorted to using network automation software to manage these networks for them.

However, automation without assurance is a risky business, IP Fabric says, because that means they lack the visibility to ensure automation has the intended effect and doesn’t negatively impact parts of the network. In addition, the complexity of modern networks makes it difficult to identify and eliminate vulnerabilities, resulting in numerous blind spots that could, potentially, be exploited by hackers.

To solve these challenges, IP Fabric has created an application programming interface-based platform that can rapidly discover, model and visualize complex networks, giving users end-to-end visibility and control over their entire infrastructure. It provides customers with both a high-level overview, and also granular detail of their network state by creating a flexible network model, which can then be used to detect vulnerabilities and inefficiencies, and verify policy compliance.

In a statement, IP Fabric Chief Executive Pavel Bykov said companies that refuse to employ network assurance are really just leaving the resilience of their infrastructure to chance, as they have no way to react to the threats they face or ensure they are adhering to regulatory compliance requirements.

“IP Fabric delivers the network assurance needed to operate without the exponential risk of network failure or outages while enabling innovation through standardized access to network control data,” Bykov explained. “Organizations must act now because building operational control without a validated baseline provided by network assurance will lead to gaps and unknown unknowns, which ultimately cause outages and security incidents that impact people, businesses, critical infrastructure, and governments.”

It’s a message that appears to resonate with enterprises, as IP Fabric claims to serve more than one hundred globally, including names like Airbus SE, Société Air France, S.A., Major League Baseball, Red Hat Inc., HCL Technologies Ltd., Avast Software s.r.o. and BlackBerry Ltd. Earlier this year, it was named as a “Cool Vendor” in the network automation category by Gartner Inc.

One Peak co-founder and Managing Partner Humbert de Liedekerke said the need to discover, model and visualize large networks is becoming a priority for more enterprises. “Enterprises can’t risk automating in the dark – networks are too important for guesswork that could expose vulnerabilities or cause outages,” he said. “This is why IP Fabric’s unique ability to help enterprises understand, automate, and secure complex networks is so critical to enable the future of network automation.”

IP Fabric said the funds from today’s round will help it to achieve its mission of ensuring network assurance becomes ubiquitous, so businesses and governments can operate without running the risk of network failure.

Image: IP Fabric