Aqua Security raises $135 mn to hit $1 bn-valuation, to focus on India R&D

US- and Israel-based Aqua Security, which has an R&D centre in Hyderabad, has raised $135 million in Series E funding led by ION Crossover Partners, raising the startup’s valuation at more than $1 billion. The cloud computing security company has raised $265 million in total.

Aqua’s existing investors--M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), Lightspeed Venture Partners, Insight Partners, TLV Partners, Greenspring Associates, and Acrew Capital--participated in the round.

With about 50 employees in the country, India is Aqua’s strategic centre and it is going to double its investment here in 2021, making the India centre becoming the fastest growing R&D centre for Aqua in 2021, said the company. Aqua is looking to expand its R&D Team by 100 per cent this year in 2021 to become at least 20 per of the overall global workforce and add additional functions to the site as well.

“In India Aqua’s focus will be on enhancing its offerings by Innovation, Research & Development and supporting the customers,” said the company. In addition to the development and customer support functions, Aqua is also focused on driving strategic engagements with Tata Consultancy Services, HCL, and Wipro, which are Indian IT companies providing services internationally.

“As attacks targeting cloud native applications are now a fast-growing threat, we are here to empower our customers to protect their investment and secure their future in the cloud,” said Dror Davidoff, CEO and co-founder of Aqua Security.