Israeli firm Aqua Security to double down on India presence after turning unicorn

Cloud native security company Aqua Security will significantly expand its presence in India, following a $135 million fundraise that valued the US and Israel headquartered company at over $1 billion. 

The Series E funding round was led by ION Crossover Partners and saw participation from returning investors M12, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Insight Partners, TLV Partners, Greenspring Associates and Acrew Capital, a statement said. 

The company, which runs a research and development center in Hyderabad, said that it will double its investment in India in 2021, following the funding.  

The company currently has 50 people at its Hyderabad R&D centre and will expand its team by 100% in 2021, said the statement. In addition, it plans to expand strategic engagements in India with key global system integrators including the likes of TCS, HCL, Wipro and others, apart from its development and customer support functions. 

With the current round of funding, Aqua Security has raised $265 million in equity capital since inception in 2015. The company helps enterprises adopt technologies such as Kubernetes and containers, serverless and other cloud-based workloads while meeting business compliance and security requirements.  

“We’ve shown that our research and development teams are ahead of the market with the launch of innovative products such as Aqua DTA, our new Kubernetes Security Posture Management, and the Aqua CSPM solution. As attacks targeting cloud native applications are now a fast-growing threat, we are here to empower our customers to protect their investment and secure their future in the cloud,” said Dror Davidoff, CEO and cofounder of Aqua Security in the statement. 

The company claimed to have doubled the number of its paying customers in 2020 across federal, financial, energy, telecom and automotive sectors.