Israeli IoT cybersecurity company SCADAfence announced today that it had closed a $10 million Series A financing round. Investors include Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), NexStar Partners, 31Ventures Global Innovation Fund, GB-VI Growth Fund Investment Limited Partnership managed by Global Brain, iAngels and DS Strategic Partners. The investment will be used to expand the company’s R&D center in Tel Aviv and global business development teams to meet growing market demand across North America, Asia and Europe.
SCADAfence provides cybersecurity systems for industrial operational technology (OT) networks, which as part of the Industrial IoT or Industry 4.0 revolution, are being increasingly connected to external networks, making them more productive, easier to manage and more cost-effective. However, this new reality exposes them to cybersecurity risks that can result in operational downtime, process manipulation, theft of intellectual property and ransomware attacks. Manufacturers from various industries have reported losses of hundreds of millions of dollars in profits due to halts in production caused by ransomware attacks such as WannaCry and Petya. These recent incidents indicate just how vulnerable OT networks are, and that cyber attacks are already significantly affecting the bottom line of industrial companies.
SCADAfence cofounder and CTO Ofer Shaked said, "Most IT security solutions are inadequate for securing industrial networks, and the risk they pose on the operational process usually outweighs their security benefits. SCADAfence provides a passive and continuous monitoring solution, that is guaranteed not to add any additional risks, making it very easy for companies to improve their security posture."
SCADAfence's customers include Global Fortune 500 companies in the automotive, pharmaceutical, chemical and energy industries. With SCADAfence’s solution, administrators and operators are able to bridge the cybersecurity gap that comes when connecting OT and IT networks to ensure operational continuity of those networks and secure valuable assets.
"SCADAfence uniquely provides real-time detection, complete visibility and asset management. Simply using IT security solutions in OT isn’t effective, which is exactly why we see a lot of value in SCADAfence’s technology,” said Yoav Tzruya, General Partner at JVP. “SCADAfence’s solutions’ unprecedented ability to scale, achieve high detection rates while providing industry-leading user experience and low total cost of ownership, make them the only product that fits the requirements of large industrial networks.”
SCADAfence cofounder and CEO Yoni Shohet said, “The diversity of our investors, from the US, Japan and Israel, as well as our global customer base, is an indicator of the widespread recognition of the problem that industrial companies face today in terms of cyber threats. OT networks were not designed with cybersecurity in mind, yet now cyberattacks have become an imminent threat and companies cannot stand to risk exposing these environments, which is where we come in.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 21, 2017
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