Israeli cyber cecurity Startup Forescout raises $76 M in funding

Forescout, which is a Israel based network security startup that helps companies keep track of all the devices on their networks, announced that it raised $76 million in its latest investment round yesterday.

ForeScout’s solutions help corporate IT departments find devices on their networks that they are unaware of. For example, if a visitor to the company office plugs in his laptop to a port in a conference room,it can be detected. Likewise if a hacker is trying to gain access to a networked printer, the breach will be detected.

The new round of funding brings the company’s total valuation to more than $1 billion, tripling its valuation in just 18 months.

For companies which deploy large number of IOT devices, the solutions from ForeScout are increasingly important. For many large enterprises that number of devices — which includes employees’ personal mobile devices ,PCs, virtual machines used for testing new applications, and now IoT devices — can easily run into the millions, making it hard for network administrators to keep tabs on everything happening on their company’s network. According to ForeScout when the company first runs its software with a client, it typically finds 20-30% more devices on the network than the client’s IT team expected.

With recent news of cyber attacks on the networks of major financial companies, Network security companies are cashing in the opportunity. Forescout is well-positioned to exploit the market for solutions that help secure IoT devices, a market that we expect will grow quickly in the coming years.

The company said additional capital will be used to expand global field operations, build a support organization and increase research and development efforts in the Internet of Things security market.