Security And Compliance Platform Company Vanta Raises $50 Million

By Noah Long • May 16, 2021
  • Vanta — a leading automated security and verified compliance platform — announced recently that it raised a $50 million Series A round of funding. These are the details.

Vanta — a leading automated security and verified compliance platform — announced recently that it raised a $50 million Series A round of funding. The new funding round was led by Sequoia Capital along with participation from existing investor Y Combinator. Sequoia general partner Andrew Reed will join Vanta’s board of directors. And the company will use the new funding to meet customer demand, launch new products, and open a second office in New York.

Obtaining SOC 2 compliance can take a company many months of repetitive work. And Vanta enables companies to prepare for SOC 2 audits in a matter of days with an automated continuous monitoring platform that connects to services including Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, GitHub, Okta, and Slack. Conventional methods of preparing for a compliance audit are manual, laborious, and error–prone. And Vanta helps startups become secure and prove their security to customers, leveling the internet’s playing field and allowing startups to compete with larger companies on their merits.

Vanta saw tremendous growth since coming to market in 2018. And in two and a half years, the company has surpassed $10 million in annual recurring revenue through word-of-mouth growth and continues to double its customer base every 6 months, all without an official launch. 

As the SaaS market expanded to over $150 billion in 2020, the risks and costs associated with security breaches have similarly expanded. Last year, in the United States alone, over 150 million people were affected by data breaches. Nearly 1,000 market-leading companies such as Clubhouse, Lattice, Calm, Loom, Notion, and UserTesting, trust Vanta to power their security and compliance.

As part of Vanta’s mission to secure the internet and protect consumer data, the company announced 2 compliance certifications available in invite–only beta:

— HIPAA – Any U.S.-based internet business that handles personal health information (PHI) must safeguard patient data per the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). And Vanta is providing an array of security monitoring tools that prove compliance with HIPAA. 

— ISO 27001 – ISO 27001 is a common data safety and information security certification for businesses with global customers. And for internationally-focused businesses, Vanta supplies a comprehensive suite of security and privacy tools that secure the business and prove compliance with ISO 27001.

The company is planning to nearly double headcount to 100 full time employees by the end of the year. 

KEY QUOTES:

“We’re at a crucial turning point as an industry: software is a huge part of our lives, but we trust software companies less than ever before. At Vanta, we’re pioneering a continuous, automated approach to security and compliance that protects customer data and helps grow these businesses.”

— Christina Cacioppo, Vanta’s CEO

“We’re thrilled to partner with Christina and Vanta. Many Sequoia-backed companies already work with Vanta to prove their security and accelerate their growth, with great results. We’ve heard clear praise for Vanta’s product and team. Vanta has uncommon product-market fit and is building a category-defining business. We’re excited to partner with Vanta to accelerate its adoption with global software companies and its hiring of top talent across every function.”

— Andrew Reed, Partner at Sequoia

“While the end result of the SOC 2 process is a more secure organization, there is a huge amount of unnecessary pain and busy work involved in the accreditation and renewal process. Vanta is simplifying that massively for teams.”

— Jack Altman, CEO of Lattice