Dragos secures $74M to assure industrial control systems from threats
Dragos, a company that develops software to secure control systems for manufacturing and industrial equipment, has raised $74 million in an extension of its Series D round. WestCap led the funding and brought the total amount raised by Dragos to $440 million. The startup’s post-money valuation remains unchanged for the second year at $1.7 billion. Dragos CEO Robert Lee stated that the additional funding will be used to continue expanding the company’s customer base, which currently includes approximately 400 organizations and governments. According to Lee, “Equity provides Dragos with the most operational flexibility. The Series D funding extension will bolster Dragos’ ability to make industrial cybersecurity more accessible worldwide.”
Dragos, a company founded by Lee, Justin Cavinee, and Jon Lavender, is based in Hanover, Maryland. Lee’s experience as a cyber warfare operations officer in the U.S. Air Force inspired him to establish Dragos. The company is dedicated to assisting asset owners and operators, particularly in electric, water, oil and gas, and chemical industries, in protecting their infrastructure from threat actors who target industrial settings’ hardware monitoring, management, and control devices.
According to recent data, attacks on industrial control systems, also known as hardware, are becoming more frequent and sophisticated. Competitor Waterfall Security Solutions reported 57 attacks on industrial control systems in 2022, representing a 140% increase in attacks compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, a survey by ABS Group, a consulting group for the marine and offshore oil, gas, and chemical industries, revealed that 45% of organizations believe threats to their control systems are “high.” In comparison, another 15% believe they are “severe or critical.”
Frost & Sullivan forecasts the global industrial cybersecurity market to reach $10.2 billion in 2025, up from $3.3 billion in 2020.
Industrial infrastructure has become a prime target for cyber-attacks, which can be used to take control of the environment, warns Lee. Previously, industrial controls were separated from IT networks, but now they are increasingly connected, which makes them more vulnerable. Dragos has developed a platform to secure these controls by providing visibility of an organization’s assets and communication channels. The platform uses analytics to identify threats, helps to prioritize vulnerabilities, and provides playbooks for responding to attacks. In addition, Dragos is one of the few vendors that offers a managed hunting service and a threat intelligence service for customers. It hunts for potential threats within an industrial control system environment and enables customers to share intelligence anonymously with the broader community. Dragos has been expanding rapidly over the past few months, with a workforce of 500. It has grown into Western Europe, including Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and has also established a footprint in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It has partnered with IT consultancy Macnica to provide its products in Japan. The company has also signed a three-year deal with the Singaporean government’s cybersecurity arm to support its efforts to defend against cyber-attacks on its operational technology and critical infrastructure.
Dragos is working to expand its partner program, the Dragos Global Partner Program, which was launched earlier this year. The program provides training to partners involved in reselling, managing, and deploying Dragos’ platform, including asset discovery and threat detection services. In an interview, Lee expressed Dragos’ goal to eventually become a publicly traded company, with the timing currently uncertain.