Rackspace Invests in CrowdStrike Series C Funding Round
Managed Cloud Company Invests in SaaS-based Next-Generation Endpoint Protection as Security Practice Expands
LONDON, UK – 14th July, 2015 – Rackspace® (NYSE: RAX), the #1 managed cloud company, today announced that it has made a significant investment in CrowdStrike’s $100 million Series C financing round. CrowdStrike provides the first true Software-as-a Service (SaaS) based next-generation endpoint protection platform and is a leader in the security space. The financing round, led by Google Capital, brings CrowdStrike’s total funding raised to $156 million.
“Security is a top priority for Rackspace, and we’re committed to being world-class in our ability to deter, detect and respond to cyber attacks,” said Brian Kelly, chief security officer at Rackspace. “As a CrowdStrike customer, we’ve seen firsthand how effective its platform is in helping us prevent cyber attacks, as we work to serve over 300,000 business customers each day. Rackspace and its leadership team have the utmost confidence in CrowdStrike’s ability to provide industry-leading, next-generation security solutions.”
Rackspace was an early adopter of the CrowdStrike Falcon platform in 2013. The company provides Rackspace’s 24x7x365 Security Operations Center with the expertise, technology and threat intelligence needed to help protect customers from advanced cyber attacks, even malware-free intrusions.
“Rackspace strives to invest in companies with differentiated technology, high product efficacy and transformational strategic value,” said Brannon Lacey, senior director of strategic projects at Rackspace. “CrowdStrike encompasses all of these characteristics, and is uniquely positioned to play an increasingly important role in the cyber security space.”
Rackspace offers a variety of security controls and techniques focused on deterring, detecting and responding to security issues, including integrated threat intelligence and analytics, zero-day detection and defense, continuous/risk-based authentication and more. Later this year, Rackspace plans to extend its service offering with advanced security capabilities directly to customers’ environments, tailoring protection from advanced threats to specific customer needs, threat profiles and environments. CrowdStrike will play a key role in this new service offering.
“As both a customer and an investor, Rackspace is a valuable go-to market partner for CrowdStrike as we work to completely transform the security industry,” said George Kurtz, co-founder and chief executive officer at CrowdStrike. “Rackspace has been an influential proponent of disruptive technologies and sees the value of our cloud-based endpoint protection platform as well as our unique proactive security services. With this visionary approach, CrowdStrike is disrupting the multi-billion dollar endpoint security market and has become the standard for next-generation endpoint protection”
About Rackspace
Rackspace (NYSE: RAX), the #1 managed cloud company, helps businesses tap the power of cloud computing without the challenge and expense of managing complex IT infrastructure and application platforms on their own. Rackspace engineers deliver specialised expertise on top of leading technologies developed by OpenStack, Microsoft, VMware and others, through a results-obsessed service known as Fanatical Support®. The company has more than 300,000 customers worldwide, including two-thirds of the FORTUNE 100. Rackspace was named a leader in the 2014 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Enabled Managed Hosting, and has been honoured as one of Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For in six of the past eight years. Learn more at www.rackspace.co.uk
