Contrast Security Announces $65 Million Funding Round

Contrast Security has completed a $65 million Series D funding round led by a new investor, Warburg Pincus, and plans to use the funding, in part, to fuel international growth.

This brings the company’s total funding raised to $122 million. Contrast said the investment will strengthen its position as the “leading platform to enable secure DevOps.”

Contrast Security’s Surag Patel

Surag Patel, Contrast’s chief strategy officer, tells us his company plans to accelerate investment in channel partners with this funding round. The company has experienced more than 300 percent growth in its “channel-driven ecosystem,” he said.

“This means an increased global focus, additional channel enablement resources and accelerated channel marketing,” he said. “We will also invest in elevating our brand in market to drive demand for partners.”

The funding will accelerate the company’s technology innovation, field operations and international expansion, along with significant growth in its customer-success team, the company said. These investments all are in order to meet the rapidly increasing demand for the company’s modern approach to software security.

“Partners are a core part of our strategy in several international markets,” Patel said. “We have built some key channel relationships across Europe and Japan, and we’re actively building the network across APAC, Australia and other regions.”

Contrast said it experienced strong corporate growth and financial performance in fiscal year 2018, including overall average annual revenue growth of more than 120 percent year-over-year, a larger customer base with the addition of 520 new companies using Contrast solutions, and 500 percent year-over-year growth in the number of $1 million or greater transactions.

“Alan [Naumann, Contrast’s CEO] and the team at Contrast Security have built a formidable platform with a next-generation approach to application security,” said Brian Chang, managing director at Warburg Pincus. “Our market research shows that companies around the globe are investing in digital transformation and software development initiatives. High-speed DevOps software and rapid cloud adoption create an enormous security risk if legacy tools are used. These mega-trends create a uniquely large opportunity for Contrast Security.”

In addition, Contrast recently announced Community Edition, a DevSecOps offering that allows development, security and operations teams to deliver secure software on time to meet growing business requirements. It’s aimed at helping small teams building Java applications and APIs protect against the most common security flaws.