Opaq Networks, a cloud-based, network security-as-a-service provider (SECaaS), said it has landed $22.5 million in second round funding, more than doubling the $21 million it secured on launch in January, 2017.
The Series B financing was led by new investor Greenspring Associates and included existing backers Columbia Capital and Harmony Partners. As part of the deal, Hunter Somerville, a Greenspring partner, will sit on Opaq’s board of directors.
Opaq’s channel partners stand to gain substantial support from the capital infusion: The Herndon, VA-based company plans to use some of the money to expand sales campaigns by its managed service providers (MSPs), value added resellers (VARs) and managed security services providers (MSSPs) to deliver its services to midsize enterprises. Opaq has a new structure in place to do just that with a freshly launched formal channel partner program along with a commitment to a 100 percent channel sales model.
Opaq positions its SECaaS platform as addressing the needs of midsize enterprises for Fortune 100-level network security previously hampered by complicated deployments, limited resources and price, Glenn Hazard, Opaq’s chairman and CEO, said. "This latest round of financing provides the necessary resources to accelerate our go-to-market plan, continue to expand our focus on channel partners and overall market adoption,” he said.
To underwrite Hazard’s point, Opaq pointed to a recent report by analyst Transparent Market Research, in which it forecast that small and medium-sized enterprises will help push the global cyber SECaaS segment to $88 billion in revenue by 2025, nearly tripling the $31 billion it generated in in 2016 and advancing at a 12.5 percent compound annual growth rate through the period.
Researcher Gartner expects worldwide enterprise cyber security spending will reach $96 billion this year, for an eight percent uptick from 2017. Security services will account for nearly $58 billion of that, the firm said.
Opaq Networks: Partner Momentum
It’s been a busy start to 2018 for Opaq. In the past three months, the company has joined the Palo Alto Networks NextWave partner ecosystem in a deal that enables MSSPs, VARs and other channel partners to deliver the network security provider’s firewalls as a managed cloud security service. In addition, Opaq has acquired acquired business intelligence/reporting automation specialist FourV Systems for an undisclosed sum.
Opaq’s venture backing comes a day after Expel, another Herndon-headquartered security provider, landed $20 million in Series B funding to back its alternative managed security platform.
Greenspring's cyber security investment portfolio also includes cloud-based provider Proofpoint and content delivery network, DDoS mitigation, internet security services company Cloudflare.
