Cloud access security broker (CASB) Netskope has announced the close of a series F funding round of $168.7 million (£130.5m) to ‘further cement [its] position as the leader in accelerating security transformation throughout the enterprise’, in the company’s words.

The funding round was led by existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partners – whose interests in the cloud security space have included Datrium and Zscaler – alongside investment from Accel, Base partners, Geodesic Capital, Iconiq Capital, Sapphire Ventures and Social Capital.

CEO Sanjay Beri argued in a blog post following the announcement how, without security transformation, digital transformation will fail – and how Netskope is best placed to fulfil organisations’ needs.

“Legacy cyber security vendors have reacted to this [cloud] shift by acquiring companies and cobbling together disparate architectures and products in an attempt to present customers with a ‘unified’ solution, but in reality these products are unified in name only and they were designed for an environment where data and applications were placed in centralised data centres and IT teams were primarily the ones responsible for selecting and deploying applications,” wrote Beri.

“Unlike legacy vendors, Netskope was born in the cloud. We empower our customers to achieve the security transformation they need in order to make the shift to a digital-first model.”

Netskope’s vision is around protecting all assets with a unified SaaS, IaaS and web security platform. Having been purely cloud-focused, the strategic decision was made last year to increase visibility to the entire web. The company was named as a leader in Gartner’s CASB Magic Quadrant earlier this month. Gartner praised Netskope’s comprehensive risk database and access control policies in its analysis, but noted a caution around a ‘minor’ increase in inquiries around installation challenges and service performance.

Speaking to this publication on the occasion of Netskope’s series E funding last June, Beri noted how even traditional cloud laggards, such as healthcare and finance, were key customers. In some aspects, it was an ideal opportunity; these companies did not wish to fall behind in their technology roadmaps, but they were scared stiff around the data security element.

“You think [financial and insurance would] be the laggards but some of the largest financial institutions are Netskope customers, and they’re leveraging cloud not only because their end users want [it], but because it’s a corporate strategy now,” said Beri. “It’s a competitive advantage, if you can leverage these properly.”

Total funding for Netskope now stands at just over $400 million.

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