Skyhigh Networks, the leading Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), today announced a $40 million Series D financing round, bringing the company's total capital raised to $105.5 million. Thomvest Ventures led the round, with participation from Sequoia Capital and Greylock Partners. In conjunction with the financing, Umesh Padval, Venture Partner at Thomvest, has joined the Skyhigh Networks Board of Directors.

This latest round of funding, which comes with an increase in valuation of the company from the last round, will lead the company through to profitability. Skyhigh plans to use the funding to accelerate its go-to-market investments and extend its leadership in the rapidly growing cloud security market with its Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) solution.

'We are thrilled to have raised an up round from Thomvest, Greylock, and Sequoia, particularly in the current environment,' said Rajiv Gupta, co-founder and CEO, Skyhigh Networks. 'It is a testament to the incredible work of our employees and will enable us to accelerate our growth and carry us to profitability. We are delighted to have Umesh Padval from Thomvest join our Board of Directors as we capitalize on the market opportunity to be the control point for the cloud.'

'As the massive migration to cloud accelerates, security has become a major pain point for enterprise CISOs,' said Padval. 'The market for cloud security is directly tied to the demand for SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, collectively projected to grow to $141 billion in 2019. We recognize in Skyhigh the rare combination of a massive market opportunity, technical product leadership, enviable list of customers, visionary management, and a world-class team. Skyhigh helped pioneer the CASB market, and we look forward to working with their team as they continue to innovate and lead this space.'

The adoption of a central control point to protect confidential data stored in thousands of cloud services is a necessary evolution of the security market - from network security to end point security to cloud security. Analysts call the cloud access security broker (CASB) category one of the fastest growing security markets ever.

Gartner recommends, 'Security leaders should deploy CASB for the centralized control of multiple services that would otherwise require individual management' in its Market Guide for Cloud Access Security Brokers, Craig Lawson, Neil MacDonald, Brian Lowans, October 22, 2015. Gartner included CASB as a top security technology for 2016, and predicted that the largest wave of CASB adoption will occur in the next few years, 'By 2020, 85% of large enterprises will use a cloud access security broker product for their cloud services, which is up from fewer than 5% in 2015' in its report, How to Evaluate and Operate a Cloud Access Security Broker, Neil MacDonald, Craig Lawson, December 8, 2015.

Launched in February 2013, Skyhigh's achievements include:

Market leadership: Skyhigh serves 600 enterprise customers across 30 million end users. These customers include some of the largest and most innovative companies in the world across every vertical, including 40 percent of the Fortune 500. Skyhigh was recently named to the Cloud 100, Forbes' list of the top private cloud computing companies in the world, and received the Box Trust Partner of the Year Award.
Product innovation: Skyhigh offered the first pure-play CASB solution with its launch and provides the broadest platform today with 12 functional blades (e.g. encryption, data loss prevention, user behavior analytics, contextual access control, etc.). Skyhigh provides comprehensive functional coverage for shadow and sanctioned cloud applications, with support for all deployment modes - reverse-proxy, forward-proxy, and API.
Technology leadership: Skyhigh has earned three key CASB patents, including one for mobile-to-cloud security without an agent or VPN and one for cloud-based encryption with customer-managed keys. Skyhigh is the only CASB to be FedRAMP compliant and it also is the only CASB to receive the stringent ISO 27018 certification.
Visit the Skyhigh Networks blog to read more about the funding announcement from CEO and co-founder, Rajiv Gupta.

About Skyhigh

Skyhigh Networks, the cloud security and enablement company, allows enterprises to safely adopt cloud services while meeting their security, compliance, and governance requirements. Over 600 enterprises including Aetna, DIRECTV, General Mills, HP, and Western Union use Skyhigh to gain visibility, manage threats, ensure compliance and protect corporate data across shadow and sanctioned cloud services. Headquartered in Campbell, Calif., Skyhigh Networks is backed by Greylock Partners, Sequoia, Thomvest and other strategic investors.