A Dallas technology company that built a secure Internet browser for businesses has raised an additional $100 million from investors, pushing its valuation further up the unicorn chart to $1.5 billion.
The new investment in Island brings the company's total funding to more than $325 million. This funding round was led by Prysm Capital and Canapi Ventures Fund, along with existing investors Insight Partners, Stripes, Sequoia, Cyberstarts, and Georgian.
Island is one of seven privately held North Texas companies thought to be valued at more than $1 billion, a mark that should be classified as a unicorn, according to tracking site Crunchbase. .
Other unicorns and their valuations include precision medicine pioneer Caris Life Sciences ($8 billion), supply chain technology company o9 Solutions ($4 billion), and mobile wireless software maker Mavenir ($3 billion). , LTK ($2 billion) in digital influencers and marketing, and healthcare. software company ShiftKey ($2 billion) and extinct genetic engineering company Colossal Biosciences ($1 billion).
Enterprise browsers like Island are designed to be used by businesses and organizations, not individuals. Island says he has sold more than 2 million browsers to date to customers across major industries and sectors.
Island touts the browser as solving “some of the most pressing challenges our customers face,” with a focus on remote work, contractor access, and compatibility with personal and corporate devices. I am. This browser is built on Chromium, the same open source project as Google Chrome.
“Island is an exciting addition to what has quickly become one of the most exciting and high-growth product areas in cybersecurity and IT in recent years,” Jay Park, co-founder and managing partner of Prysm, said in a statement. He is a pioneer and a clear leader.” “There is tremendous market potential across industries for innovative ways for employees to work safely and productively.”
Island co-founder and CEO Mike Fey said in a statement that the company plans to use the funding to expand its research and development efforts and expand into other global markets. He previously served as president of Symantec and general manager of McAfee.
Fay and chief technology officer Dan Amiga quietly began developing the browser, emerging from stealth in February 2022 and announcing a $100 million funding round. Their company has since raised an additional $115 million from investors.
Island currently has 250 employees and plans to hire additional people.
Neil Underwood, co-founder and general partner at Canapi Ventures, said Island's browser was quickly adopted by banks. His company is backed by more than 70 banks as limited partners.
“It's unusual to see security technology adopted so quickly in the financial sector,” Underwood said. “This is truly the holy grail for financial services and fintech, delivering unprecedented security and compliance at the same time as employee productivity. There are no products.”
This article also used information from Bloomberg.