FireLayers today announced that Akamai Technologies, the global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services, has joined a YL Ventures-led funding round. The FireLayers platform protects enterprise cloud applications and data by combining its unique threat detection and real-time prevention with risk-based, user-centric mitigations.

'FireLayers is a prime example of a CASB platform as defined by Gartner. It is a strong validation of our technology, market and growth position that a cloud leader of Akamai's stature elected to become an investor'
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The funding will be used to expand sales and marketing, onboard new customers, grow the team and accelerate development of FireLayers' product roadmap. Well-funded since coming out of stealth in February 2014, FireLayers is not disclosing the amount of this round.

YL Ventures, an early investor in FireLayers, is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm led by Yoav Leitersdorf that specializes in Israeli cybersecurity software companies.

Under the investment agreement, Akamai's vice president and CTO of Akamai Labs Andy Champagne joins the FireLayers board as an observer.

'Based on our view of the market and extensive technical evaluation, FireLayers' core technology is well-positioned to deliver the enterprise-side cloud access security broker (CASB) solution the market needs,' said Champagne.

According to Gartner, 'CASBs are an emerging technology that is evolving rapidly, and is a technology that delivers to enterprises a central point of monitoring and control across multiple cloud services.' 1

'FireLayers is a prime example of a CASB platform as defined by Gartner. It is a strong validation of our technology, market and growth position that a cloud leader of Akamai's stature elected to become an investor,' said Yair Grindlinger, co-founder and CEO of FireLayers. 'As the cloud market grows, the security perimeter and attack surface grow with it. Protecting cloud applications, data and infrastructure is now essential for corporate compliance and security in the enterprise.'

Since coming out of stealth, FireLayers has matured rapidly. Today its solution is GA-ready and being used on a daily basis by multiple enterprises from various industries. An end-to-end CASB platform, FireLayers provides its customers with powerful analytics, threat detection and prevention, risk-based authentication, user-facing mitigations and other unique capabilities.

Just like their counterparts on desktop apps, cloud app developers focus on functionality, not security, leaving security gaps in the cloud. FireLayers closes those gaps and adds a layer of proactive protection and monitoring to any cloud application that:

Combines broad, cross-application analytics for threat detection and real-time mitigations for threat prevention - an industry first
Extends security protections to all cloud app users, data, access and actions and delivers highly granular policy-based rule enforcement and auditing down to the single command level
Protects enterprise cloud applications by integrating context and risk factoring into security policies and triggering user-centric mitigations to prevent data breaches
Identifies file sharing-related actions, in real time, in any application including homegrown applications running on Azure, AWS and Google Cloud, other IaaS customized applications and off-the-shelf SaaS tools like Box, Google Apps, Office 365, Workday, SuccessFactors, Salesforce and ServiceNow
For more information, please visit www.firelayers.com.

About FireLayers

FireLayers enables the responsible adoption of cloud apps, while ensuring security, compliance and governance of any cloud application on any device by any user. The FireLayers Secure Cloud Application Platform delivers full control over homegrown and popular apps like Salesforce, Office 365, SuccessFactors, NetSuite and endless others. Its Secure Cloud Application Platform, which features risk-based authentication, threat detection and prevention, empowers enterprises with new levels of security, visibility and control across their cloud resources. FireLayers provides the granular control IT teams need to create safe zones for productive work while protecting enterprise data, networks and financial transactions from malicious attackers, external threats and accidental risky employee behavior.

About Akamai

As the global leader in Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, Akamai makes the Internet fast, reliable and secure for its customers. The company's advanced web performance, mobile performance, cloud security and media delivery solutions are revolutionizing how businesses optimize consumer, enterprise and entertainment experiences for any device, anywhere. To learn how Akamai solutions and its team of Internet experts are helping businesses move faster forward, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.