Cambridge-based big data security company, Sqrrl, announced on Monday that it has closed a $5.2 million Series A round of funding from existing investors Matrix Partners and Atlas Ventures. This brings Sqrrl's total funding to $7.2 million since it launched its NSA-derived database software for powering big data in June.
The Sqrrl Enterprise software is essentially the private sector's version of Apache Accumulo, the NoSQL Wide Column software developed by the NSA. The Sqrrl database gives enterprises control of individual pieces of sensitive data, without the hassle of additional data being locked down. The software is being used by government and financial services as well as the healthcare telecommunications, academic, and energy industries.
Co-founders Ely Kahn and Owen Falkowitz developed the technology at the NSA, but moved to Boston in the summer of 2012 for the company's public launch. However, Falkowitz left the company earlier this year and Mark Terenzoni, former SVP of F5 Networks, replaced him as CEO. In addition to Kahn and Terenzoni, Antonio Rodriguez of Matrix Partners and Chris Lynch of Atlas Venture make up Sqrrl's board of directors.
According to this morning's press release, the funding will be used to further develop and commercialize the Sqrrl Enterprise software.
“With the level of interest we are seeing in our rapidly growing base of large enterprise customers, we are excited about the enormous market opportunity in front of us,” Terenzoni said in the press release. “The funding enables us to accelerate the growth of our sales and support organizations to meet the growing demand for our platform. At the same time we will continue to build our engineer team and develop innovative product features.”
