Cyber traffic defense firm gets In-Q-Tel backing
By
Ross Wilkers
A malicious traffic defense outfit completes its first venture capital funding round that also included In-Q-Tel, the U.S. intelligence community's investment arm that now has an international hub.
Cybersecurity firm Kasada has raised $7 million in its first significant round of venture capital financing that includes funding from new investor In-Q-Tel, the intelligence community’s arm for investing in technology startups.
In a release posted on Thanksgiving Day, Kasada said it has doubled is engineering and customer-facing teams over the past 12 months as this most recent “Series A” funding round moved ahead.
The company has designed its security software-as-a-service product to detect and mitigate malicious bot traffic that affects websites, mobile applications and application programming interfaces, or “APIs.” Kasada built the offering to halt account takeovers, data scraping and other unwanted automated activities within 30 minutes of detection.
Kasada was founded in 2015 and has three main offices that include one in New York City and two in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. Commercial businesses in the U.K. also use the Kasada product.
Including for the U.S. intelligence community, In-Q-Tel also identifies and backs companies whose technologies can positively impact national security for Australia’s government.
In-Q-Tel opened an office in Sydney earlier this year to house its IQT International Australia subsidiary, which collaborates with that country’s own office of national intelligence. A goal of this effort is to support collaborations between the U.S, Australia and the U.K that are all members of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance alongside Canada and New Zealand.