Cybersecurity platform Huntress lands $40m as it pursues to help SMEs tackle online threat

Threat detection and mitigation company Huntress scored a $40m Series B investment round led by JMI Equity.

The funding, which also saw participation from existing investors ForgePoint Capital and Gula Tech Adventures, will be used to support the firm’s goal of “elevating SMBs above the cybersecurity poverty line,” it said. This funding round comes after Huntress previously secured an $18m Series A investment round led by ForgePoint Capital in February last year.

The new cash injection will enable Huntress to continue expanding its cybersecurity platform to meet the evolving needs of its partners including managed service providers and value-added resellers that deliver security services to SMBs.

Furthermore, Huntress will continue to focus its efforts on the attack surfaces that hackers target most frequently in SMB environments. The company also plans to enable its partners to manage preventive solutions like antivirus and firewalls while moving beyond endpoint detection to increase visibility into network traffic and cloud-based email threats.

Huntress’ platform enables businesses to identify and eliminate attackers who have bypassed preventive tools and are hiding within exposed IT environments. Its SaaS platform coupled with its ThreatOps team hunts down bad actors and stops attacks that other security solutions miss. It does so whilst reducing the cost and complexity barriers that prevent small businesses from upgrading their cybersecurity defences.

This funding comes ten months after the launch of the Huntress Security Platform, which saw the company extend its core capabilities of identifying and removing malware to include ransomware detection, port scanning and antivirus management.

More recently, the company acquired network-aware endpoint detection and response technology from San Antonio-based startup Level Effect.

Commenting on the funding round, Huntress CEO Kyle Hanslovan said, “Until small businesses and mid-market firms can improve their security posture, they’ll remain prime targets for attackers. We’re seeing evidence of that every day—in large-scale efforts like the exploitation of Exchange servers, and via the constant barrage of ‘normal’ malicious tactics hackers use to infiltrate businesses that are unprepared to launch a counter-response. These growth-driven partnerships ensure we can continue challenging tomorrow’s attackers, by accelerating our roadmap and evolving to meet new and diverse threats.

“And, importantly, minority investments allow us to laser-focus on securing our partners without sacrificing the values which enable our team to defend the channel. At a time when many vendors are over-promising and under-delivering, we’re effectively doubling down on our mission to bring highly effective—and affordable—cybersecurity services to the 99% of businesses that need it most.”

JMI general partner Suken Vakil added, “Their team’s commitment to protecting, educating and enabling these organizations that are being actively exploited is second to none.”

Its clients are already seeing the benefits of onboarding Huntress’ platform. One of them being Logically whose chief strategy officer Michael Williams said, “Huntress is an essential part of our layered security stack. It’s our backstop—it quickly identifies a breach, reduces remediation time and minimizes negative impacts. Huntress pays for itself many times within a single incident.”

With more than 1,500 resellers who in turn support more than 25,000 end-customer organisations, the company has grown to include nearly 100 full-time employees, a number it seeks to grow this year.

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