Verizon Ventures and Qumra Capital have provided funding for Israeli firm Vdoo, which is a specialist in security solutions for connected products.
In a release, Vdoo revealed it had extended its Series B funding to $57M, in an additional round led by Qumra Capital, Verizon Ventures and other companies.
The new funding will enable Vdoo to expand its offering to the telco and smart utility space, amid the backdrop of the connectivity surge induced by COVID-19.
The new round increased the total capital raised by Vdoo to $70 million. Qumra Capital and Verizon Ventures joined existing investors 83North, GGV Capital, WRVI Capital, Dell Technologies Capital, NTT Docomo Ventures, MS&AD Ventures, among other investors. Verizon Ventures is the corporate venture capital investment arm of Verizon Communications.
“Over the last year, we’ve experienced huge market demand from device deployers such as telcos and utilities,” said Netanel Davidi, co-founder and CEO of Vdoo. “These companies are responsible for the security of the millions of devices such as routers, connected home appliances, and smart meters that they deploy to their end-user and customer environment. With Vdoo’s new offering, they can now quickly and easily vet the security and standard compliance of these devices and continue to monitor and protect the devices over the lifecycle of the product.
“As a result, our newest customers include top U.S. and global telcos and additional utilities players globally. We are happy to announce this round after receiving strong market validation, and we are thankful we were able to grow significantly in these challenging times,” the executive said.
Vdoo highlighted that according to research firm Markets and Markets, the global device security market is forecast to grow from $12.5 billion in 2020 to $36.6 billion by 2025. COVID-19 and the shift to working from home have dramatically increased the number of remotely connected devices, accelerating the demand for securing connected products, the company said.
Vdoo delivers an automated product security platform for device manufacturers and deployers. Vdoo’s platform performs a complete security assessment in a short period of time, providing a comprehensive report identifying zero-day vulnerabilities, CVEs, configuration and hardening issues, standard incompliances, and other security exposures with suggested prioritization and remediation mechanisms.
“With this connectivity surge, the need for dependable security platforms is at an all-time high. The pandemic and the dramatic acceleration in the adoption of new technology platforms have made the need for multiple layers of security even more essential,” said Verizon Ventures Managing Director Tammy Mahn.
“With the expansion of 5G networks and MEC, Verizon Ventures has a vested interest in supporting “security by design”, including the continuous vulnerability management of devices. The investment will help further Vdoo’s ability to provide robust security to all IoT devices in our rapidly digitizing world,” Mahn added.
