Australia's Future Fund backs US data protection start-up
Australia’s Future Fund has participated in a $45 million Series C round of funding for US-based data protection company Bitglass, joining existing investors such as Singapore’s Singtel Innov8.
The other groups re-upping include New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Norwest Venture Partners, which co-led Bitglass' $10 million Series A round in 2013. They returned for the $25 million Series B the following year and were joined by Singtel Innov8. The company has now raised $80 million in total.
The capital will be used to support expansion globally, including the Asia Pacific region. Founded in 2013, Bitglass' flagship product is the Cloud Access Security Broker, which provides companies with end-to-end data protection from the cloud to the device. It is intended to work with any cloud app - such as Microsoft's Office 365 and Exchange Server, Google's G Suite, Slack, and Salesforce - and any device.
Cloud applications are now used in more than 59% of organizations worldwide for document editing, enterprise messaging, data storage, and customer relationship management. A recent Bitglass survey of more than 100 IT executives found that 22% plan to reduce spending on on-premises security infrastructure, while over half of respondents had four or more cloud apps deployed. One in three described themselves as cloud only or cloud first.
"Cloud and mobile are driving business data beyond the firewall, introducing new security and compliance risks. Bitglass uniquely delivers real-time inline data protection in the cloud, at access, and on any device. This funding is testimony to our strong position in the market and fiscal health," said Nat Kausik, CEO of Bitglass, in a statement.
Future Fund had total assets of A$122.8 billion ($90 billion) as of June 2016, of which 10.4% was deployed in private equity. Venture capital and growth equity accounted for A$5.89 billion of the PE program, with approximately A$2 billion in venture capital alone through fund-of-funds, direct fund investments and co-investments. This gave Future Fund early exposure to the likes of Uber, Didi Kuaidi, Pinterest, Airbnb, Atlassian and Snapchat.
Other direct investments in US-based start-ups include taking the lead in a $50 million round for big data services company MapR Technologies. NEA is an existing investor in the company, alongside Google Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, Qualcomm Ventures and Redpoint Ventures.
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