Ionic Security, the Atlanta-based data security company, has announced a growth capital raise of $40 million led by JPMorgan Chase & Co, with participation from new investor Google and existing investors Kleiner Perkins, GV, Icon Ventures, Meritech Capital, TechOperators, and Ten Eleven Ventures.
This fundraise, which brings the late-stage startup’s total capital raised to over $160 million, is their first funding round since a Series D of $45 million in 2016. That Series D included Amazon and Goldman Sachs as participants.
Ionic was founded to give enterprises a solution that many consumers are demanding these days — ensuring security for the vast stores of data stored in the cloud that companies collect and use every day. Founder and CTO Adam Ghetti began developing the technology in 2011, but didn’t launch it publicly until 2015.
Ionic’s multi-encryption tools secure an enterprise’s files and documents with customizable permissions, allowing managers or IT teams to permit or revoke file access for specific parties. They can protect both cloud-stored and on-premise data, and provide analytics to show managers how files are being accessed across the company.
“One of the toughest challenges facing enterprises today is effectively managing the security, governance, privacy, and ultimately trust, of the vast amounts of data powering large organizations,” said Rohan Amin, JPMorgan Chase’s CIO, Consumer & Community Banking and new member of Ionic’s Board. “Ionic Security’s data trust management platform, along with a powerful ecosystem of partners, allows firms like ours to bring consistency and simplicity to these challenges.”
“Rohan is an extremely well-respected member of the enterprise security community, and brings a wealth of real-world feedback and acumen onto our board,” Ionic’s VP of Marketing Sean Allen tells Hypepotamus. “We are also thrilled to be working with Google on a number of strategic initiatives in support of Google Cloud Platform as part of the partnership we formed back in 2017.”
Ionic’s clients include Fortune 100 financial institutions, software providers, healthcare systems, government organizations, and others, with millions of users across both public and private sectors. Partners like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud enable the technology’s easy adoption across different data environments.
This new capital will be used primarily for technology development, according to company representatives.
“From our earliest days we have focused on building deep, trusted, and expansive relationships for the benefit of the overall security ecosystem. JPMorgan Chase and Google have demonstrated their commitment to the same ideals after years of close collaboration to create elegant solutions for the complex problems that face the entire enterprise IT landscape,” said Ghetti in a statement.
Ionic employs more than 200 in their Midtown Atlanta headquarters. Allen says they are “focused on filling a number of key positions across our go-to-market, engineering, and integration and enablement teams,” most of which will be based in Atlanta.
With this announcement, they have also made several additions to their leadership team, promoting two current executives and hiring three new leaders for VP roles in engineering, product management, and marketing.
This article was updated after publishing with Ionic’s VP of Marketing Sean Allen’s comments.
