ReliaQuest Raises Over $300 Million in Growth Financing Led by KKR

ReliaQuest, an advanced cybersecurity managed service and intelligence platform for global enterprises, today announced it has raised over $300 million in growth financing in a round led by leading global investment firm KKR, with participation from Ten Eleven Ventures and ReliaQuest founder and CEO Brian Murphy. The investment, which follows $30 million in growth equity from FTV Capital – who partnered with the firm in 2016 – will support ReliaQuest in accelerating the company’s growth initiatives, including international expansion and platform development.

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Cybersecurity remains a top concern for enterprises as the complex threat landscape continues to evolve and the global shortage of cyber talent worsens. Many enterprises resort to an increasing number of security technologies, outsourcing to managed security services providers (MSSPs), or a combination of both. As a result, the MSSP market will grow nearly 15% YOY to reach $27.9 billion by the end of 2020, according to IDC. However, companies often fail to realize the value of these options due to poor performance and lack of effectiveness.

To bridge this gap, ReliaQuest developed a fundamentally different approach – providing customers a software platform, called GreyMatter, and a team of highly trained cyber analysts to deliver dramatically improved security effectiveness and efficiency. GreyMatter is the first cloud-native SaaS platform that consolidates, normalizes, and correlates data from customers’ existing cyber technologies, vastly increasing visibility across the enterprise. The platform leverages artificial intelligence and automation, which enable continuous threat detection, threat hunting, and remediation. As a result, customers benefit from a significantly more effective security posture and are able to maximize the value and effectiveness of their existing cybersecurity investments.

“ReliaQuest’s GreyMatter platform is supported by some of the top security talent in the industry, enabling enterprises to increase visibility across cloud and on-premises technologies, allowing them to reduce risk and compromises. The investment from KKR and Ten Eleven is an important step that allows ReliaQuest to continue to scale globally while innovating and accelerating the development of the GreyMatter platform and follows what was a foundational investment from FTV four years ago. The entire ReliaQuest team has worked hard to get where we are, and we are excited about the future as we continue to work alongside our customers to solve one of the largest technical challenges of our time,” said Brian Murphy, founder and CEO of ReliaQuest.

KKR’s investment in ReliaQuest follows several years of breakout growth and innovation in the cybersecurity market. The company’s revenue has grown more than 450% over the past three years on the strength of relationships with some of the world’s most prominent brands. The company plans to add another 100 employees to its ranks worldwide through the course of 2020, building on an industry-leading employee retention rate of 91% as reflected in major awards such as Fortune Best Workplaces in Technology, Deloitte Technology Fast 500, and Entrepreneur Top Company Cultures.

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“With its best-in-class technology, ReliaQuest is helping companies protect their digital footprint, which is more important than ever. As a ReliaQuest customer ourselves, we’ve experienced firsthand how seamless and effective their platform is, and are thrilled to have the opportunity to invest behind it,” said Stephen Shanley, Director at KKR.

Patrick Devine, Principal at KKR, added, “We’re excited to be working with the ReliaQuest team as they continue to scale globally and help organizations secure their environments.”

Ten Eleven General Partner Mark Hatfield added, “In these challenging times, enterprises need powerful, resourceful solutions to manage their cybersecurity operations. ReliaQuest has developed a new approach to this challenge with its GreyMatter platform, giving security teams the ‘superpower’ to see more, detect and investigate faster, and make better decisions. We look forward to partnering with ReliaQuest as they offer enterprises a new way of obtaining advanced cybersecurity protection.”

KKR will be making the investment through its Next Generation Technology Growth Fund II, a fund dedicated to growth equity investment opportunities in the technology space. KKR has established a strong track record of supporting technology-focused growth companies, having invested over $2.7 billion in related investments since 2014. KKR and Ten Eleven Ventures have also supported market-leading cybersecurity companies including Darktrace, KnowBe4, Ping Identity, Cylance, and ForgeRock.

Advisors on the agreement include RBC Capital Markets, Sidley Austin LLP, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and Latham & Watkins LLP.

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