New York-area startups and venture capitalists are making funding deals with the hopes of creating the next profitable company. Here's one deal announced Tuesday:
New York-area startups and venture capitalists are making funding deals with the hopes of creating the next profitable company. Here's one deal announced Tuesday:
Who gets: Cloud security startup Avanan. The company, based in Lower Manhattan on Varick Street, has a research and development facility in Tel-Aviv
Amount raised: $14.9 million, in a Series A funding round. This brings the company’s total capital raised to $16.4 million.
Who invests: Greenfield Cities Holdings LP (GFC) led the effort. GFC is a joint venture between TPG Growth, the growth equity and venture capital firm, and tech investor Yuda Doron who will join the Avanan board. TPG has backed a number of well known startups, including Airbnb, Survey Monkey, Uber and Zscaler. This would be GFC's first investment. Existing investors Magma VC and StageOne Ventures also participated in the round.
What the CEO says:"Our former customers were moving to the cloud and were asking for the same protection in the cloud that we were providing on the network. We wanted to allow them to secure their cloud with one easy-to-use SaaS platform that incorporates the technologies they already trust,” said Gil Friedrich, Avanan founder and CEO.
Company details: Avanan is a provider of SaaS tools for cloud security management. Founded in 2014, the startup plans to use proceeds from this investment — GFC's debut deal — to enhance its product suite, build a leading sales organization and grow its customer base. GFC, meanwhile, is looking for other investment opportunities of up to $20 million.
Doron has more than 20 years of experience investing in technology companies. He collaborated with TPG Growth on its investment in Infinidat and prior to his senior advisor role at the firm, he served a similar role to Sumeru and Silver Lake Partners’ growth fund.
Anthony Noto is a multimedia journalist focused on venture capital and Silicon Alley startups. Based in New York for the Business Journals, he previously was a reporter at SourceMedia and The Deal LLC. He is a graduate of Rutgers University.
