The Series C round of funding in Dragos represents an investment “by industry for industry.”

Dragos secures industrial control systems and operational technology (ICS/OT), the command network and systems devices that monitor modern industrial processes against hackers having ulterior commercial and political motives.  The startup announced today that investors representing some of the world’s largest corporations had funded its Series C $110 million round. (BusinessWire)

Dragos was founded in 2016. Its integrated software platform provides customers with visibility into their ICS/OT networks. As a result potential threats are identified and neutralized before they can escalate.

The current round is the largest investment to date in a company in the ICS/OT sector.

Cumulatively, Dragos has raised $ 158 million – also the highest funding level for a startup in this space.

A coalition of industrial and manufacturing companies as well as investors

The funding round was led by co-led by National Grid Partners, the independent venture investment arm of National Grid plc. (NYSE: NGG) and Koch Disruptive Technologies, the investment arm of Koch Industries, one of the world’s largest technology companies.

Other investors in the round included Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures (SAEV), a fund of Aramco Ventures, the $1.5 billion venture capital program of Aramco (TADAWUL: 2222), and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NASDAQ: HPE).

Existing investors including Allegis Cyber, Canaan, DataTribe, Energy Impact Partners and Schweitzer Engineering Labs also participated.

National Grid Partners Director Andre Turenne and Byron Knight, Managing Director of Koch Disruptive Technologies, joined the Dragos board.

Burgeoning demand for ICS/OT cybersecurity

Robert M. Lee, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Dragos, Inc. said that many powerful drivers had coalesced to generate “an unprecedented level of market interest and customer demand” for ICS/OT cybersecurity.

According to Forrester Research, industrial organizations had to accept the cybersecurity risks of remote operations very suddenly. They, therefore, had to move quickly to close these unexpected security gaps.

These circumstances also triggered “an exponential increase in expanded threat surface with increased vulnerabilities and new attacker methods.”

This translated to more opportunities for cyber bad actors.

Unsurprisingly, the roster of investors in Series C includes firms that not only believe in Dragos as a business but also stand to gain from advanced and improved industrial cybersecurity in their daily operations.

“Combating cyber threats against critical assets that power our operations is at the center of our risk management approach across the entirety of Koch Industries,” said Jarrod Benson, Chief Information Security Officer of Koch Industries in a statement. “Industrial cyberattacks can impact worker safety, plant productivity, and business continuity. Safeguarding our data is important and protecting our operations is essential.”

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