Confirming earlier reports, cloud security startup Upwind Security Inc. today said it has raised $100 million in a Series A funding at a $900 million valuation, or roughly triple that of a him$50 million funding round 15 months ago.

Since its founding in late 2022, the Israeli-based firm has raised $180 million. It plans to use the new funding to double its headcount to nearly 300 people and expand operations across current offices in Israel, San Francisco, the U.K. and Iceland.

The company sells a cloud-native application protection platform or CNAPP that integrates multiple security capabilities and is designed to protect cloud-native applications at every stage from development to runtime. It layers in runtime-specific functionalities such as cloud security posture management, a cloud workload protection platform, cloud detection and response, vulnerability management, identity security and container security.

The platform protects Kubernetes and container-based services using eBPF DaemonSets — a Linux kernel technology that allows safe, efficient execution of custom code in the kernel space — and Kubernetes audit logs. Together, these enable threats to be detected at the operating system and network levels in real-time while providing continuous visibility into workloads.

Upwind said it was the first company to identify and address the importance of application program interface security and deep application runtime context as part of a CNAPPC. It establishes baseline metrics based on resource activities such as application and network requests and applies runtime context to identify risks.

As a result, the company claims it can reduce alerts by 90%, addressing the problem of “alert fatigue,” in which security administrators are overwhelmed by system generated alerts that are often irrelevant or redundant. Alert fatigue can cause administrators to miss real problems or ignore alerts entirely.

The round was led by Craft Ventures LLC along with by new investors TCMI, Inc. (TCV) and Alta Park Capital LP as well as existing investors Greylock Partners LLC, Cyberstarts Opportunity Fund, LP, Leaders Fund Inc., Cerca Partners Ltd. and Sheva Ventures Fund LP.

Photo: Upwind Security