XONA, a developer of a leading zero-trust user access platform for industrial operations, announced the closing of an $18 million strategic funding round led by established cyber investor Energy Impact Partners (EIP). This brought the company’s total funding to $32 million.
This funding will enable the company to enhance its OT enterprise zero-trust user access platform, helping customers meet the evolving regulatory environment and prevent increasing cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure.
XONA enables frictionless user access that is purpose-built for operational technology (OT) and other critical infrastructure environments. And XONA’s proprietary protocol isolation and zero-trust architecture – which is technology agnostic and configured in minutes – immediately eliminates common attack vectors, while giving authorized users seamless and secure control of operational technology from any location or device.
This funding round for XONA’s innovative solution comes during a time when industrial enterprises are experiencing a major transition from on-site control room operations to hybrid remote and mobile models. While remote work empowers companies to respond to shifting employee preferences and operational realities, it introduces new cybersecurity vulnerabilities that risk people, property, and profits.
Along with further strengthening the XONA team, the newly secured funding will accelerate product development, including growing strategic OEM and technology alliances and providing richer user access analytics.
Over the last few years, operational asset owners have recognized the often urgent need to provide users, such as third-party vendors, partners, contractors, technicians, and other external IT staff, with remote operations access to support the unique requirements of process control environments in critical infrastructure industries. However, traditional remote access solutions like virtual private networks, open the door to cyber-attacks and breaches such as ransomware attacks.
XONA’s secure and intuitive platform combines strong multi-factor authentication (MFA), asset and protocol isolation, role and time-based access controls, moderated access and file transfer, and user session logging and recording.
KEY QUOTES:
“We’re quickly expanding our team to support our energy, oil and gas, manufacturing, and government partners as they respond to the cybersecurity challenges associated with remote operations capacity. With new funding and strategic support from EIP, we are positioned for hypergrowth over the next few years.”
- Bill Moore, founder and CEO of XONA
“We are thrilled to partner with XONA in this next phase of growth. Remote access for operational technology (OT) is one of the fastest-growing product categories, and XONA’s product stands out for its unique time-to-value, ease of use, and robust security features designed specifically for OT environments. We see significant opportunities for solutions like XONA, especially in light of the major wave of VPN replacement and digital transformation initiatives. This partnership aligns perfectly with our commitment to supporting innovative technologies that help accelerate digital transformation and support the energy transition.”
- Tansel Ismail, Vice President at Energy Impact Partners
