Mocana, a Sunnyvale, California-based Internet of Things (IoT) device security platform has raised $15 million in funding led by Sway Ventures. Existing investors Shasta Ventures and ForgePoint Capital (formerly Trident Cyber) also participated in this round. Including this round, Mocana has raised a total of $105 million.
The United States Council of Economic Advisors estimates that malicious cyber activity cost the U.S. economy between $57 and $109 billion in a single year. And the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) said that cyber threats were the most important strategic threat facing the U.S. These are issues that Mocana addresses through its product offerings.
“With existing IT network and operational technology (OT) security measures failing to keep the hackers at bay, there has never been a more critical time to rethink security and start protecting devices from the inside out,” said Mocana CEO William Diotte in a statement. “Our customers require simple and secure solutions that allow them to protect both legacy devices and new devices. We are seeing strong demand for Mocana’s TrustCenter, and this new funding will help us deliver on our promise of providing protecting cities, countries and families.”
Mocana is essentially addressing a cybersecurity problem that costs companies tens of billions of dollars every year. And hackers are bypassing traditional IT network security approaches by attacking IoT and connected industrial and enterprise devices from within private networks through the use of phishing emails and physical intrusions to target the most vulnerable devices.
The funding will be used for adding new technical capabilities into TrustCenter and TrustPoint, which drives further growth across Mocana’s customer base of large defense, industrial manufacturing, and IoT companies. And Mocana will be adding visibility and analytics tools into its TrustCenter later this year in order to provide a deep view of the processes running on systems and subsystems of IoT devices and industrial control devices. Plus the company will use the new investment to grow its sales, marketing, and customer support operations as it continues expanding globally. Some of the companies that use Mocana’s solutions include ABB, Emerson, GE, HP, Intel, Panasonic, Schneider Electric, Siemens, Verizon, and Xerox.
TrustPoint is a device security software platform that is designed for resource-constrained embedded systems and enables IoT devices to defend themselves. And TrustCenter provides unprecedented controls, automation, and orchestration to scale the provisioning and management of security for massive-scale IoT and mission-critical IoT. Currently, Mocana protects more than 100 million devices and is trusted by some of the largest aerospace, industrial, energy, healthcare, and communications companies.
“It’s no secret that today’s industrial control systems and IoT devices are extremely vulnerable to cyberattacks,” added Sway Ventures founding general partner Brian Nugent. “We believe Mocana’s laser focus on providing comprehensive IoT device security offers the most efficient way to defend against sophisticated attack scenarios.”
Mocana’s device security solutions complement IT network and security technologies like firewalls, IDS/IPS, and threat detection by enabling the endpoint devices and gateways in order to defend themselves using on-device cryptographic controls — which are designed for mission-critical systems with limited memory and processing capabilities. And Mocana TrustCenter is considered the only solution of its kind that is able to automate, orchestrate and manage IoT device security while meeting high levels of cybersecurity compliance and standards
“Mocana is driving a fundamentally different approach to securing IoT from the device to the cloud,” explained Shasta Ventures managing director Rob Coneybeer. “We continue to invest in Mocana because we firmly believe that their TrustCenter IoT device security management platform is a game-changing technology for the future of IoT and industrial control system security.”
