Information technology infrastructure automation vendor SaltStack Inc. this week closed what it claims is the largest-ever Series A financing round in its market’s history.

At $15.5 million, the infusion dwarfs the $2 million and $2.5 million raised by competitors Puppet Inc. and Chef Software Inc. in their Series A rounds, respectively. Both of those companies went on to raise more than $100 million. Including seed rounds, SaltStack has now raised $28 million.

IT automation has been an essential driver of both the big data and cloud computing markets since. It enables organizations to automate the configuration and management of computing environments that are too large to be practically handled with human labor. SaltStack’s difference is an event-driven capability that continually monitors the environment and corrects or alerts operators when configurations change.

Chief Executive Marc Chenn (pictured) said that feature makes SaltStack a particularly strong choice for security-conscious organizations. “Eighty percent of all vulnerabilities stem from the fact that configurations have drifted, so connecting in real time to know when something changes enables you to be more proactive in your response,” he said.

This feature, which SaltStack calls “intelligent automation,” can be used to detect and counteract threats such as the hardware-based Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. “Once you know what the configuration ought to be, we can perform scans using persistent communications with all the endpoints to detect where Spectre or other vulnerabilities have made changes,” Chenn said.

Event-driven automation is also useful in internet of things scenarios where devices are continually polled for data, such as Understory Inc.’s ground-based weather monitoring network. Companies that are moving to the cloud also use automation to orchestrate the mixture of old and new applications on a variety of platforms.

SaltStack said it will use the new funds for hiring, particularly in product, engineering and sales. The round follows previous investments from Peak Capital Partners LLC , Epic Ventures and Deep Fork Capital. Ryan Sanders, a director at Mercato Partners LLC, will join SaltStack’s board of directors.

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