Microsoft leads $9 million investment round in container security startup Aqua Security

Israeli security startup Aqua Security today announced it's raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Microsoft Ventures. Previous investors TLV Partners and Shlomo Kramer also participated in the round, bringing Aqua's total investment to date to $13.5 million.

Founded in late 2015 by by CEO Dror Davidoff and CTO Amir Jerbi, Aqua Security's platform aims to protect container environments by automating policies and providing a clear view of container activity throughout its lifecycle. The platform supports Docker on both Windows and Linux, and is available either on-premises or in the AWS, Azure and Google clouds.

Aqua Security's platform came to market only a few months ago in May, but the company says it's already made gains in the financial services, technology, retail and online services sectors. The company plans to use the funding to double its staff by mid-2017 and increase its R&D efforts.

Additionally, Shlomo Kramer, who's described in the company's funding round press release as a "cybersecurity luminary," is joining the company's board of directors. Kramer is known for co-founding Check Point Software, Imperva, and Cato Networks. He's also invested in Trusteer, which was acquired by IBM, and Palo Alto Networks.

"Aqua's amazing progress in bringing its platform to market and growing its customer base are indicative of how rapidly containers are being adopted by enterprises, and of the need for a new security approach for this new stack," Kramer said in the release.

As for Microsoft Ventures, the investment entity of Microsoft was expanded in May in an effort to give the tech giant "a seat at the table" via a formalized venture fund. The group has focused investments in companies developing products and services that complement Azure, plus those working in security and machine learning.

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