Spotting a breach in the vastness of a company’s infrastructure can be difficult even for the most qualified of security teams. As a result, they’re increasingly adopting automated threat detection tools from the likes of Sqrrl Data Inc., which announced today that it has secured $12.3 million in funding to address the demand.

The investment is the latest milestone in a unique journey that started five years ago when the startup’s co-founders teamed up to commercialize an open-source database called Acumulo. Originally developed for the U.S. intelligence community, the system combines a scalable architecture with security features for regulating access to records. It’s an appealing combination, but the fierce competition in the database market soon led Sqrrl to move in another direction.

The startup went on to develop a forensics tool that takes advantage Accumulo’s ability to process large data volumes to help security experts analyze infrastructure logs for anomalies. Dubbed Sqrrl Enterprise, the platform provides a threat investigation console that makes it possible to quickly map out the different systems and files involved in a breach. Each affected component is represented in the form of a symbol that is connected to other nodes with links designed to convey their relationships with one another.

According to Sqrrl, the platform’s visual interface lets security personnel trace a breach back to the source faster than traditional forensics tools. This, in turn, provides the ability to issue a fix in a more timely manner and limit the amount of damage caused by the attack. Moreover, threat indicators identified through the platform can be fed into a company’s breach prevention systems to prevent repeat incidents. 

This value proposition is attracting a good deal of interest. Sqrrl’s platform is used by several Fortune 500 and government agencies, a customer base that it plans to expand in the wake of today’s funding by hiring more salespeople.

Spring Lake Equity Partners led the round with the support of returning backers Matrix Partners, Rally Ventures and Accomplice. Sqrrl has raised more than $26 million to date.

Image: Sqrrl