CloudLock, the cloud security pioneer and the world's leading cloud data security company, today announced it has raised $16.5 million in a Series C funding round from new investor Bessemer Venture Partners, and participation of existing investors Cedar Fund, and Ascent Venture Partners.

In 2013, CloudLock experienced another consecutive year of meteoric growth in helping enterprises of all size and in all verticals overcome their security obstacles to cloud adoption, across multiple cloud platforms like Google Apps and Salesforce. CloudLock's unique people-centric security automation approach, with a pure SaaS content-aware and policy-based solution, allows customers to enforce their own security, governance, and compliance requirements, on their data and users in the cloud, without diminishing the functionality of the platforms they protect or disrupting the end-user experience.

'As corporate data begins to live on the cloud, the question of managing and securing data has become one of paramount concern. IT departments now struggle to gain the visibility and control they had when data and applications lived on-premise. That's where CloudLock comes in,' said Bob Goodman, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. 'We think they have the right product at the right time and the right people to make CloudLock a success.'

'Very few investors understand the cloud and security as well as Bessemer does and we could not be more thrilled to add Bob and the rest of the Bessemer team to the CloudLock family. Bessemer's vision of the cloud as the backbone of a business, and track record of funding the companies that enable this innovation, is a perfect match for CloudLock and our goal of providing the cloud security fabric enterprises need,' said Gil Zimmermann, CEO & Co-founder of CloudLock. 'From our initial roots as a Cedar Fund Pre-Seed company, through our expansion with Ascent Venture partners, and now with Bessemer, we have always sought out partners and investors that share our passion and belief that the cloud is transformative for businesses on all levels. The cloud transformation has only just begun. We have big plans to execute from here that will see investments in building out our world class sales, marketing, and engineering organizations to bring even more value, across more platforms, to a fast growing market.'

Since its launch in 2011, CloudLock has grown to more than 600 paying customers, protecting millions of end-users in those enterprises. Additionally, CloudLock has built out a world-class reseller and partner network, allowing cloud services pioneers to enable organizations to embrace the cloud and transform their security and business in the process.

'The cloud is a critical piece in our enterprise collaboration strategy. As the Chief Information Security Officer of Whirlpool Corporation, it is my responsibility to ensure that our organization's users and data are protected in the cloud while optimizing their mobility, collaboration, and productivity. We've found that CloudLock's solution delivers enterprise-level capabilities, and the ability to scale to serve our 27,000 employees. CloudLock provides us with more advanced security capabilities at a lower cost than we could achieve on-premise.' - John Bingham, Chief Information Security Officer, Whirlpool.

CloudLock will leverage this Series C funding to expand in new markets, invest in existing and expanded product lines, and substantially grow its operations in the US, Europe, and Israel.

'We invested in the founding team of CloudLock at the inception of the company. I am happy to see the team develop and execute, positioning CloudLock as the leader in cloud security. We are excited to continue to back this team as both the company and market expand,' said Amnon Shoham, General Partner at Cedar Fund.

'The transition to cloud-based apps and collaboration forced a reset in the model for enterprise security and governance,' said Luke Burns, partner, Ascent Venture Partners. 'Gil and the team at CloudLock were pioneers in this field, offering enterprise grade protection without compromising the flexibility and functionality of the cloud. With growing market awareness and an accelerating rate of enterprise adoption, CloudLock is on an exciting growth trajectory and we are thrilled to continue to support the Company with this financing.'

As an established cloud security innovation leader, CloudLock will continue its aggressive innovation investment track-record with industry firsts like advanced content compliance (e.g. PCI/PII/IP), cloud application firewalling, and location-aware cloud geo-fencing, community trust ratings, and cloud data classification.

Additional Resources

Cloud Security Simplified (http://www.cloudlock.com/solutions/cloud-security-simplified/)
Read Case Studies (http://www.cloudlock.com/resources/customer-case-studies/)
Watch a Webinar (http://www.cloudlock.com/resources/webinars/8-27-13-cloudlock-data-classification-in-google-drive-webinar/)

About CloudLock
CloudLock is the cloud data security company. Its information security applications enable organizations to enforce regulatory, operational, and security compliance in public cloud platforms. The largest organizations in the world trust CloudLock to secure their data in the cloud, increase collaboration, and reduce their risk. For more information about the company or reseller opportunities visit cloudlock.com or follow CloudLock on Twitter @cloudlock.

About Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) invests in early-stage, hyper-growth startups, partnering closely with entrepreneurs to build durable businesses. BVP is a global firm with offices in Menlo Park, Cambridge, New York, Mumbai, Bangalore, Herzliya and Sao Paolo. With $4 billion under management, BVP invests anywhere from $100,000 to $75 million in innovative companies like LinkedIn, Yelp, Skype, Cornerstone OnDemand, Pinterest, Box and Twilio. Over 100 BVP companies have gone public -- the firm has seen nine IPOs and multiple M&A exits in the last two years. Learn more at bvp.com and twitter.com/BessemerVP.

About Cedar Fund
Cedar Fund is an international venture capital firm with offices in Israel and Boston that invests in high technology Israel-related companies. With its investment track record and over $325 million under management, Cedar Fund is among the most notable and active venture firms focusing on Israel-related investments. Cedar Fund invests in outstanding entrepreneurs pursuing high growth markets with distinguished technologies in enterprise software, Internet, mobile, digital media, CleanTech, networking and telecommunications. While Cedar invests in all stages, it concentrates on early stage, including Pre-Seed® (pioneered by Cedar and includes companies such as BigBand and Onaro), seed and first round (including companies such as Guardium). For more information about Cedar Fund, please visit www.cedarfund.com.

About Ascent Venture Partners
Ascent Venture Partners (www.ascentvp.com) is dedicated to investing in innovation for the enterprise. In backing more than 100 early-stage, emerging technology companies since 1985, Ascent has remained committed to its mission of partnering with exceptional entrepreneurs striving to build innovative market leaders. Ascent's investments have yielded powerful results generating more than $10 billion in enterprise value, which speaks to the firm's deep knowledge, experience, commitment, and networks. The Ascent investment team manages five venture funds with total commitments of more than $450 million, and is located in Boston, Mass.