Material Security raises $100 million to extend the product into new areas and expand internationally
Material Security announced it has secured $100 million in Series-C funding at a valuation of $1.1 billion. The round is led by Founders Fund, with participation from previous backers Andreesen Horowitz, Silicon Valley solo capitalist Elad Gil and other high-profile individual tech investors, gaining the company unicorn status just two years after the official launch of its product suite.
Material Security is also announcing new referenceable customers including Chubb, Compass, Roblox and Brex, to add to leading brands like Lyft, Mars, Databricks and DoorDash.
Founded by former Dropbox technologists in the wake of the 2016 Election Hack, Material Security is a pioneer of using “zero trust” security techniques to protect email. Its patented security technology is trusted by government agencies, media and manufacturing conglomerates, leading financial institutions, the most targeted companies in Silicon Valley, and high-profile personalities including billionaires and celebrities.
“The fundamental idea behind ‘zero trust’ is that it assumes a bad actor is going to find a way past the perimeter into your systems. But historically, email security has just focused on blocking suspicious messages,” said Ryan Noon, co-founder and CEO of Material Security. “Whether it’s a large global organization like News Corp. or a local health care provider, we are still seeing an overwhelming number of email and data security breaches occur on a regular basis. At Material, we begin with the assumption that a hacker is already in your email and limit the damage they can do.”
Material’s Leak Prevention feature, for example, automatically redacts sensitive content in email, keeping it safe in the event of a breach. Users can still access original messages via identity-protection apps that their company already uses. “Not all emails are created equal,” said Abhishek Agrawal, co-founder and CTO of Material Security. “Some messages are so critical that they deserve an extra layer of verification. But the way email works today is that it treats every message identically.”
Bringing Material Security’s total investment to $166 million since its founding, this latest round of funding will be used to scale the company’s sales and marketing teams, extend the product into new areas (including a larger footprint in government) and expand internationally.
“As the U.S. government doubles down on ‘zero trust’ and organizations are increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats given geopolitical crises, Material Security is poised to minimize the risks associated with email hacks,” said Trae Stephens, partner at Founders Fund. “We are excited to partner with this innovative team at such a critical point in their growth trajectory.”