MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.– Fortanix Inc., the Runtime Encryption technology company, announced that it has closed a $23 million Series B round of funding led by Intel Capital. Round participants included existing investors Foundation Capital and Neotribe.
In addition, Sunil Kurkure, Director, Intel Capital will join the Fortanix Board of Directors. The funding brings the company’s total funding to $31 million.
Fortanix is executing on its bold vision of solving today’s cloud security and data privacy problem. By decoupling security from the infrastructure, Fortanix removes complex and intractable security challenges experienced with current solutions. Running applications in protected enclaves enable a new level of security on premise, in hybrid environments, and even on remote clouds, protecting data even when systems are compromised.
“Fortanix uniquely protects encryption keys, databases, machine learning algorithms, and containers to secure organizations’ data in private, public and hybrid cloud environments,” said Ambuj Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO of Fortanix. “This new funding is a testament to the tremendous growth we’ve already experienced, in 18 months since we first launched our product. We are also excited to add Sunil Kurkure to our Board of Directors, and we will leverage his exceptional leadership and guidance as we grow our business.”
Anand Kashyap is co-founder and CTO of the company. Both founders are IIIT Kanpur graduates.
The latest funding will be used to expand all facets of Fortanix to meet the increasing demand for its Self-Defending Key Management Service™ and Runtime Encryption® platform. In addition, this investment will fuel the company’s rapid acceleration internationally, where it is already seeing significant revenue and growth. The funding will further Fortanix’s work with Intel and support the companies’ joint strategy of driving the ability for enterprises to securely move data from on-premise and offsite to the cloud, while expanding Fortanix’s reach in the market.
“Congratulations to Fortanix on this achievement,” said Window Snyder, Chief Software Security Officer, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Platform Security Division. “We look forward to continued collaboration and working together to solve complex data privacy challenges our customers face, leveraging Intel® SGX.”
While today’s encryption technologies protect data at rest and data in motion, Runtime Encryption® technology keeps keys, data and applications completely protected while in use. Fortanix helps organizations address General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy rights requirements, and secures artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms leveraging sensitive data as inputs, without compromising on the confidentiality of the data. It also addresses critical enterprise blockchain security requirements with advanced cryptographic algorithms and data protection features, in order to secure encryption keys for blockchain and financial information.
Fortanix’s Runtime Encryption® platform secures any Linux application running in the cloud and has been selected to power IBM Cloud Data Shield. SDKMS offers a cloud-scale key management, hardware security module (HSM), and tokenization solution service – all rolled into one product with infinite scalability for number of keys and number of operations. It is in use at organizations globally and powers Equinix’s SmartKey™ HSM-as-a-service.
Intel Capital invests in innovative startups targeting artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, datacenter and cloud, 5G, next-generation compute and a wide range of other disruptive technologies. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested US $12.3 billion in 1,544 companies worldwide, and more than 660 portfolio companies have gone public or participated in a merger. Intel Capital curates thousands of business development introductions each year between its portfolio companies and the Global 2000.
Fortanix’s mission is to solve cloud security and privacy challenges. Fortanix allows customers to securely operate even the most sensitive applications without having to trust the cloud. Fortanix provides unique deterministic security by encrypting applications and data everywhere – at rest, in motion, and in use with its Runtime Encryption® technology built upon Intel® SGX. Fortanix secures F100 customers worldwide and powers IBM Data Shield and Equinix SmartKey™ HSM-as-a-service. Fortanix is a venture backed Gartner Cool Vendor headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. (IANS)
