UpWest’s First Unicorn — SentinelOne Raises $200M at $1.1B Valuation
It is an exciting time for one of the very first companies we invested in back in 2013, SentinelOne, who announced a $200M Series E financing round at a $1.1B valuation to expand its AI-based endpoint security platform. The round was led by Insight Partners, with additional investors that include Qualcomm Ventures and Tiger Global.
TechCrunch said: “The funding is notable not just for its size but for its velocity: it comes just eight months after SentinelOne announced a Series D of $120 million, which at the time valued the company around $500 million.”
In 2013 we gave Tomer Weingarten and Almog Cohen their first check for their startup that was called at the time “Sentinel Labs.” We had conviction in the team and their vision, knowing that the biggest value we can bring them at this stage is not just cash, but our ability to accelerate the company’s entrance to and footprint in the US market.
Tomer’s vision for SentinelOne was clear from the beginning: “We are building the next generation AV and will offer a solution no other company can build relying on new behavioral technology”. This behavioral technology is what we know today as AI. The founders also knew that they had to break into the US market early in order to scale the business. Even though members on their team had already run and sold successful startups, finding those marquee customers in the US was not viable while operating out of Israel. They knew it was critical to first get to the real target audience in the US as quickly as possible before they started architecting the solution to build a better product suited to large US customers. Once in the US, we were able to help them refine their story, identify the first pilot customers, recruit top advisors and bring in their first seed investors: Data Collective, Accel, Granite Hill, Dan Scheinman and other top Angel investors.
We are proud to have supported the company over the years, and the added value of our community still plays an important role in SentinelOne’s company culture. According to Tomer:
“Whenever we have a certain goal, whether it’s reaching a specific person, or getting into a strategic event, our team never hesitates to leverage our network and industry mentors for guidance. From business consideration to funding options, we can always benefit from bringing in an outside perspective. The UpWest community is like a family. It becomes part of your life.”
SentinelOne now has more than 500 employees worldwide. We are so proud of their incredible executions and hustle, and are excited to see what’s next in their journey!
Needless to say, they’re hiring.
