Drive Capital LLC and Ohio Innovation Fund have a new unicorn in their portfolios – and the Boston cybersecurity startup is expanding the Columbus office it opened five years ago at the urging of the VC firms.
Immuta Inc. is valued at $1 billion in a $100 million venture capital round announced Wednesday, led by NightDragon. The Series E makes a total of $267 million raised to date.
In 2017, Drive Capital led its Series A, joined by the months-old Ohio Innovation Fund – which would not have invested if the startup weren't planning a presence in the state.
"A lot of our culture is just embodied in the city," founder and CEO Matt Carroll told Columbus Business First. "It’s rare to find the loyalty and work ethic and camaraderie we've built in Columbus.
"One thing the city’s done really well, it’s figured out how to work with early to mid-stage startups."
The military intelligence veteran started the company in 2015 in Maryland. Five years ago, Carroll said, the Columbus VC firms and JobsOhio made a persuasive case that the many large legacy corporations in Central Ohio and statewide offered a wealth of potential customers, plus a source of talent.
"Our success is definitely a byproduct of some of the Columbus ecosystem – the people, the engineers," Carroll said. "We don’t lose people when we hire them in Columbus."
At first Immuta had about three people inside Drive's offices, where the firm incubates many portfolio companies. Then it moved to the Brewery District.
This year Immuta returned to the Short North, taking two floors for 20,000 square feet in the former Serendipity Labs, 886 N. High St. The coworking chain closed that location early in the pandemic.
Not only that, Carroll moved his family to Central Ohio. He wanted to lead hiring locally to ensure the office, home to key customer-facing roles like product managers, fit Immuta's culture.
Boston remains the largest office – about 60 of the 250 employees – and administrative headquarters for the company, he said.
More than 50 people are in the Columbus office, and that could triple in coming years, Carroll said. Overall this year Immuta expects to double staff.
As more enterprises move their data to the cloud, Immuta’s technology adds an extra layer of security to ensure only authorized users have access. It works with the major cloud providers including Amazon, Google and Microsoft’s Azure.
One of those cloud data platforms, Snowflake, joined the funding round through its venture arm.
“That validation is important,” said Bill Baumel, Ohio Innovation Fund managing director. “It’s not just a VC saying that; it’s a leader in the data science world.”
All the more impressive is Immuta closed the round amid sliding stocks, major pullbacks in VC investing and tech layoffs, Baumel said.
“Achieving unicorn status in June 2022 is a heck of a lot harder than achieving unicorn status in September or October of ’21,” he said. “It’s a great achievement, but it’s also a great responsibility. … The ultimate value is what you exit at.”
Immuta doubled annual recurring revenue and customers last year.
"The market may be recessing; data security is not," Carroll said. "The future is not only bright, but it’s necessary, because of the ethical and legal reputations of corporations."
Carroll told sister publication Boston Business Journal the round allows the company company to "get aggressive on the M&A side." To quickly add features that customers demand, Immuta could buy companies and "pop them in."
Going public is "not even remotely an option" for Immuta in the near future, he told the publication, because it's so early in building its technology and data infrastructure.
This is the first announced unicorn for OIF, a fund backed by state universities that started investing in 2016. A Cincinnati portfolio company is believed to have hit that status with a recent round, and has the potential to hit $10 billion valuation, Cincinnati Business Courier has reported.
Drive also invested in subsequent Immuta rounds. Partner Andy Jenks, who led the investment, wasn't immediately available for comment.
Carroll said Drive and OIF helped the business focus in the frustrating early years when it took longer than expected to find a growth market. Immuta started with government clients, later adding financial services, pharmaceutical companies and other industries.
"What they brought to the table is patience – advice and focus, and the ability to work through really complex problems," Carroll said. "That’s what the best investors are."
