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Cisco Invests in Cloud-Native Start-up Valtix, Reuniting Pensando Founders with their Alma Mater
January 2021 by Marc Jacob
Valtix announced a $12.5M strategic investment from Cisco Investments, Northgate Capital and The Syndicate Group (TSG) to accelerate the launch its native cloud security product through capital and aggressive re-seller support. The press release is available here: Valtix Secures Strategic Investments from Cisco Investments and TSG.
For Cisco, Valtix represents a cloud architecture in the purest form— that’s for the cloud, and born in the cloud, providing the type of security that can be scaled up and down across multiple clouds. It’s a massive and growing market, yet there are precious few solutions. Palo Alto Networks is making its case for Prisma Cloud. Few others have emerged with anything as comprehensive. See Cisco’s Blog: “Valtix: Network Security for the Cloud, of the Cloud, in the Cloud,” published today by Prasad Parthasarathi, Director & Global Head of Cybersecurity, Cisco Investments.
Valtix is run by a seasoned team with an extraordinary ability to innovate. Prior to founding Valtix, cloud infrastructure company Pensando Co-Founders Vishal Jain and Vijay Chander, former Cisco alums, had left Cisco to start Pensando, eschewing funding from new CEO Chuck Robbins, who favored a different model from the “incubation down the street” model employed under John Chambers, who frequently plucked top engineers to start independent companies that Cisco would later buy.
With this investment, Valtix brings to market a compelling alternative to cloud security, offering the ability to discover the apps in the cloud, deploy security controls, and defend those apps from threats. Few cloud security solutions on the market cut to the heart of this problem so well. Palo Alto Networks is making its case for Prisma Cloud. Few others have emerged with anything as comprehensive.
As a result, most companies today are left with two bad choices: (1) Securing apps in the public cloud with virtual appliances which are secure but not cloud ready, or (2) using CSP-native controls, which are cloud-native but lack security features enterprises expect.
As part of the announcement, Valtix also taps powerhouse CEO Douglas Murray, the former chief executive of Big Switch, a company he joined pre-revenue, and which was recently acquired by Arista. Doug will tell you why he believes Valtix has created the technology that will define the next decade of multi-cloud network security.
