By Manya Saini and Niket Nishant
(Reuters) – Cloud security services provider Lacework on Thursday raised $1.3 billion in fresh capital at a valuation of $8.3 billion, making it one of the largest venture funding rounds of the year in the United States.
The latest financing pushed up Lacework’s valuation by more than eightfold and was led by existing investors Sutter Hill Ventures, Altimeter Capital, D1 Capital Partners and Tiger Global Management.
The San Jose, California-based firm had raised $525 million at a valuation of $1 billion at the start of the year.
Lacework is exploring different routes to go public, including a traditional initial public offering or a direct listing, although it has not finalized when it plans to do so, Lacework co-chief executive officer David Hatfield said in an interview with Reuters.
“There are a lot of different options for companies like ours, (including) a direct listing or an IPO, and we are considering those options, but nothing actively,” Hatfield said.
New investors like Franklin Templeton and Morgan Stanley’s investment arm Counterpoint Global also participated in the latest fundraise, which is extension of the Series D funding round in January.
Founded in 2015, Lacework automates the process of collection and analysis of vast amounts of data that typically flow through a company’s cloud platform.
The company provides security tools to customers, including data warehousing firm Snowflake, social networking app Nextdoor and personal finance firm NerdWallet, that help them secure cloud-based workloads.
Earlier this month, Lacework agreed to buy Soluble, a cloud infrastructure management startup, to increase the automation capacity of its platform.
Lacework’s other prominent existing investors include Coatue, Dragoneer and Snowflake Ventures.
(Reporting by Manya Saini and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Anirban Sen and Amy Caren Daniel)
