Darktrace cybersecurity startup just raised £49 million
This latest investment values the company at more than £250 million
By James Temperton
Darktrace had previously raised around $40 million in Series A and B funding
British cybersecurity startup Darktrace has raised $64 million (£49.3m) from one of Wall Street's most influential investors.
Private equity firm KKR led the Series C round, with existing investor Summit Partners and new investors TenEleven Ventures and Southbank's SB ISAT Fund also taking part. Darktrace, which is developing enterprise-level security that can detect previously unrecognised threats in realtime, was founded in Cambridge in 2013.
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The latest investment values the company at more £250m ($324m), according to earlier reports. One of Darktrace's earliest investors was Invoke Capital, an investment and advisory firm founded by Autonomy founder Mike Lynch.
The company's latest product, Antigena, combines machine learning and probabilistic mathematics to help companies proactively defend against emerging cyberattacks. The company's Enterprise Immune System, on which all its technology is based, is able to detect and block threats without prior knowledge of what it is looking for.
Nicole Eagan, founder and CEO of Darktrace, said the investment led by KKR was a "strong validation" of the technology it had developed. "With such a group of world-class investors we have an incredibly strong base to realise our full potential," she said in a statement.
Darktrace is one of the UK's fastest-growing startups, with more than 230 employees in 20 offices in Asia, Europe, North America and Oceana. It had previously raised more than $40m in Series A and Series B funding.
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