兔子先生传媒

Palo Alto, California-based secured a $70 million Series C, just more than five months after closing its $30 million Series B and less than a year after taking in a $20 million Series A.

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The new round was led by 鈥� through 鈥� with participation from and . Existing investors , , and also participated in the round. Founded in 2016, the company聽 has raised a total of $131 million.

Salt, which provides API security, was not actively fundraising when investors approached the company, said co-founder and CEO . In fact, the company still had most of its previous raises in the bank 鈥� but the company changed course after seeing a presentation from investors.

鈥淲e looked at their strategic value and thought that was something we could use,鈥� Eliyahu said.

Securing the API explosion

An API 鈥� or application programming interface 鈥� is what enables two applications to talk to each other. In essence, when you check on your phone, you are using an API.

The amount of APIs 鈥� including web, mobile and third-party 鈥� in use has exploded through the years. Eliyahu said a report by internet company said 83 percent of all web traffic now goes through APIs.

鈥淥rganizations now have thousands of APIs,鈥� Eliyahu said. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 even know how many they have.鈥�

Securing APIs is needed to protect the data and services that flow through those interfaces.

鈥淲e believe there is a significant unmet need in the market around identification and remediation of API security threats, and therefore have strong conviction in an oncoming wave of customer adoption across enterprises,鈥� said Alek Ferro, vice president at Advent.

鈥淯ltimately, we believe this is a multibillion-dollar total addressable market which will grow as API volumes continue to grow,鈥� he added.

The 70-person company will use the new funds to expand both its sales and marketing and its R&D team, as it competes against others in the API security space like and 鈥� which was just acquired by earlier this month.

In the past year, Salt鈥檚 revenues have grown 400 percent and Eliyahu sees more growth ahead. While he did not offer a precise valuation for his company after the current round 鈥� he did give a hint.

鈥淏etween zero and $1 billion, it鈥檚 closer to $1 billion,鈥� he said with a laugh.

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