Vectra, the leader in automating the hunt for in-progress cyberattacks, today announced it closed a $36 million Series D funding round led by Atlantic Bridge. Vectra will leverage this investment to expand sales and marketing globally and accelerate the development of its artificial intelligence (AI)-based threat hunting platform, Cognito.

The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) and Nissho Electronics Corp. also participated in this funding round along with returning investors Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners, IA Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, DAG Ventures and Wipro Ventures, bringing Vectra's total funding to date to $123 million.

"We have been impressed by the remarkable growth of Vectra in this fast-moving cybersecurity market," said Kevin Dillon, Managing Partner at Atlantic Bridge. "The increasing volume, creativity and effectiveness of cyberattacks means that enterprises must adopt AI to automate cybersecurity operations. We look forward to helping the company expand its global enterprise footprint."

Building on its momentum, Vectra is opening a new research-and-development center in Dublin, Ireland. This center will enable the company to rapidly expand its product portfolio, provide global reach to serve Fortune 500 customers, and create up to 100 jobs in Ireland over the next five years. In addition to the Dublin R&D center, Vectra has R&D facilities in San Jose, Calif., Austin, Texas and Cambridge, Mass.

"This is an exciting investment for ISIF that promises significant economic impact for Ireland," said Fergal McAleavey, head of private equity at ISIF. "It is encouraging to see Ireland leverage its emerging expertise in artificial intelligence by attracting businesses such as Vectra that are on the leading edge of technology. With cybersecurity becoming critical for all organizations, we are confident Vectra will deliver a strong economic return on our investment while creating high-value R&D employment here in Ireland."

"Vectra had an incredible year in 2017, during which we achieved record revenue growth of 181% over the previous year and delivered further product innovations to our customers," said Hitesh Sheth, president and CEO of Vectra. "We're excited to add Atlantic Bridge, ISIF and Nissho as investors. This investment will accelerate our mission to transform cybersecurity with AI, including delivering additional innovations through our new Dublin R&D center."

Vectra was recently named the only Visionary by Gartner in its 2018 Magic Quadrant for Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems.1 The Cognito platform from Vectra enables enterprises to detect and respond to cyberattacks in real time. Cognito uses AI to perform non-stop, automated threat hunting with always-learning behavioral models to quickly and efficiently find hidden and unknown attackers before they do damage. Cognito provides full visibility into cyberattacker behaviors from cloud and data center workloads to user and internet-of-things devices, ensuring attackers have nowhere to hide.