U.S. cyber security startup StackPath raises $150 million, says CEO

By Heather Somerville and Jim Finkle

By Heather Somerville and Jim Finkle SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Texas-based StackPath has raised $150 million in fresh funding from private equity firm ABRY Partners, the CEO of the cyber security startup said on Monday, in what is among the largest single financing rounds for a private cyber security firm. Chief Executive Officer Lance Crosby told Reuters StackPath is a security platform that houses a suite of services to tackle a spectrum of cyber threats. The company has spent "tens of millions of dollars" to acquire several companies that provide different types of cloud security services for businesses, Crosby said. The company's $150 million 'Series A' financing is substantially larger than traditional early-stage rounds, with average Series A tech deals at about $7.8 million, according to venture capital database CB Insights. The largest cyber deal tracked by CB Insights is mobile security firm AirWatch at $225 million, which was also that company's Series A funding. StackPath's security services will be offered as standalone products and as an integrated suite of services, and they work with both on-premise infrastructure and public clouds, including Amazon, Microsoft and Google cloud services, Crosby said. The company is also building its own security technology. Crosby said the company aims to be a one-stop shop for cloud security in an ever-expanding spectrum of cyber threats. Last year, there were more than 400 million identified malware attacks, and the number of new threats more than doubled from 2014, according to Robert Westervelt, an analyst with IDC's security products group. Crosby also founded SoftLayer Technologies, which he sold to IBM for $2 billion in 2013. He said he spent almost two years at IBM before leaving to found StackPath using his own money. Headquartered in Dallas, StackPath says it has more than 30,000 customers that include large businesses and startups. (Reporting by Heather Somerville; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)