Amazon and Goldman Sachs have backed this cyber security startup
Amazon and Goldman Sachs are among investors to have put millions into a cyber security startup as worries grow around keeping private information secure for businesses and consumers.
Ionic Security, which works with several Fortune 100 companies, has landed $45m (£31m) in a series D round of funding led by Hayman Capital and bringing total funding of the Atlanta-based startup to $122m.
Goldman, already a customer of the company, joins existing investors such as Google and Silicon Valley VC's Kleiner Perkins.
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"We believe that Ionic’s platform addresses one of the biggest unsolved security problems for large enterprises today: how to enable employees to utilise modern communication and collaboration platforms while also maintaining adequate controls and security standards,” said Goldman's managing director and head of software investment banking Ward Waltemath.
Amazon and Ionic will partner to make the software available across Amazon Web Services (AWS) in return for equity.
Investment in cyber security startups rocketed in the last five years, with funding more than doubling to $3.8bn in 2015, according to figures from CB Insights.
Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures have been among the biggest investors in cyber security startups over that period. It's the first time cyber security investment for Amazon, which will use Ionic's software to secure information in the cloud.
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"The goal of our collaboration with Ionic is to deliver these services to any organization, at scale with provisioning, management ease and streamlined procurement via AWS Marketplace," said AWS chief information officer Stephen Schmidt.
Ionic founder and chief executive Adam Ghetti said: “Ionic’s goal is to make the world a safer place by ensuring all data can be secure, private and easily managed throughout the entire data lifecycle regardless of its location. Our collaboration with AWS will enable customers to achieve remote trust, even for the most sensitive of data.
"The services we will offer in AWS Marketplace help ensure data is secure and private as it travels to, through and departs from the AWS global infrastructure. But the most exciting element will be our new ability to deliver these services at web scale with a breathtakingly easy provisioning and management experience – literally a push of a button – thanks to AWS.”