The zero-trust networking startup NetFoundry Inc. said today it has received its first cash injection from venture capitalists, raising $12 million in funding.

SYN Ventures was the sole participant in the round, and the cash will be used to help support the startup’s mission to simplify, secure and accelerate innovation in enterprise software.

NetFoundry is the creator of a cloud-native platform that’s used by enterprises to deploy and control high-performance zero-trust networks in the simplest way possible, without needing to set up or maintain any networking infrastructure.

The company says it has built a micro-segmented software-defined network that minimizes latency, packet loss and jitter, while providing “military-grade” security. It can be overlaid on top of any public internet connection, transforming networks into an on-demand software-as-a-service model. It’s used by companies to deploy new applications rapidly with embedded zero-trust network security.

Zero trust is a security framework that requires stringent verification for every user and device attempting to access an application or a resource, regardless of if they’re inside or outside of an organization’s network. Unlike traditional security models that rely on a defined network perimeter, zero-trust frameworks operate on the principle that no user or system should be trusted. As such, they require continuous authentication, authorization and verification in order to grant access to applications and data.

As more organizations shift their workloads and applications to public cloud infrastructure platforms, zero trust has become the standard security model. Enterprises have come to learn that traditional wide-area network models aren’t scalable, agile or secure enough for cloud computing, and that’s what NetFoundry is trying to capitalize on, helping them to embed zero trust directly into any application.

NetFoundry’s secure-by-design, network-as-code platform is based on the open-source zero-trust software framework OpenZiti, and it caters to both infrastructure providers and application builders. While businesses use it to secure any connected app or workflow across any network, infrastructure providers take advantage of its cloud-native, network-as-a-service model to embed zero trust within their own services.

It’s unusual that a company waits so long before it seeks its first outside funding. NetFoundry was founded back in 2019, and until now it has self-funded its entire operations. Over the years, it has built up an established customer base, made up of some of the world’s largest cloud services and software providers, including Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp. It also serves Blackstone Corp., the world’s largest asset manager, eight of the top 10 banks in the U.S., and the U.S. military.

NetFoundry founder and Chief Executive Galeal Zino grandly hailed today’s round as an “iPhone moment” for the secure networking industry.

“NetFoundry’s approach is revolutionary in that it enables military-grade security, but with the speed and extensibility of software,” he explained. “Organizations can no longer tolerate the tradeoffs of WAN/SASE/firewall architecture – that old model is shredded by an AI-accelerated world.”

SYN Ventures Partner Dan Burns, who was previously CEO of cybersecurity provider Optiv Security Inc., said he believes software-defined networks are the only way to keep up with cloud-based applications, because traditional network models hold back deployment and innovation.

“Dependencies such as infrastructure, IP addresses, underlay networks, specific clouds and firewalls are barriers to business velocity, agility and security,” he said. “By eliminating these barriers, NetFoundry enables enterprises to simplify, secure and accelerate digital transformation.”

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