Application security startup Heeler Security Inc. today announced that it has raised $8.5 million in new funding to enhance its real-time application security platform to improve detection, posture management and response orchestration throughout the software development lifecycle.

Launched in June 2023, Heeler’s offering seeks to address the issue wherein the growing complexity of modern applications has created an expanding and often obscure attack surface, overwhelming security teams who lack the real-time context needed to secure them. The company argues that this results in fragmented security insights across the SDLC, heightening the risks of breaches, vulnerabilities and reactive firefighting.

The company’s vision is to fundamentally transform application security by delivering real-time security and business context, detection, enrichment and posture management and response orchestration.

Heelers’ main offering is ProductDNA, a service that unifies the code, behavior and business context of applications in real time. The service offers a frictionless chain of custody between the intended state in code and the running state in production.

ProductDNA acts as a shared operating platform that seamlessly embeds security into the development lifecycle, benefiting both security and developer teams. The technology automates the repetitive and time-intensive task of assessing the impact of security issues on business applications, significantly reducing noise and false positives. Using the technology, developers can understand the security impact of their changes as they code, allowing guidance and development of resilient applications.

Despite its relative youth, Heeler Security claims clients ranging from unicorn startups to Fortune 500 firms, despite ProductDNA not yet being generally available. The service will be generally available starting in the fourth quarter of this year.

“Heeler is making it effortless for security teams and developers to easily collaborate on preventing and managing security risks throughout their entire SDLC,” said Justin Pagano, director of security risk and trust at the marketing automation company Klaviyo Inc., one of Heeler’s customers. “As innovation accelerates cloud and application complexity, Heeler’s ProductDNA provides a scalable and simplified approach to maintaining a holistic, real-time view of SDLC security and lineage with quickly actionable ownership, integrity and security risk context.”

Norwest Venture Partners led the seed round, with Storm Ventures LLC also participating.

Image: Ideogram/SiliconANGLE