Orca Security Ltd., a cybersecurity company focused on cloud computing systems, has raised $55 million in a Series B funding round.

The round was led by San Francisco multifamily office Iconiq Capital, with participation from GGV Capital, YL Ventures and Silicon Valley CISO Investments.
Orca sells a software-as-a-service, or SaaS, product designed to help businesses secure their cloud systems.

The company says its product has a technological edge over other cloud security platforms that allows it a more comprehensive view into an organization’s entire cloud infrastructure.

The approach, according to Orca, avoids the slow implementation times or costliness of other similarly secure systems.

Orca does not have fixed offices, and its team is spread across the United States and Israel. Orca’s co-founder and Chief Executive Avi Shua is based in Los Angeles.

“Cloud security is fundamentally broken. Practitioners are forced to waste their time installing and maintaining security agents instead of managing actual security risks,” Shua said in a statement. 

“Even after spending years plumbing agents in their environment, coverage is usually limited to less than 50%. What’s worse, agent-based solutions lack context. They can’t see beyond individual issues residing on individual assets, which leads to a never-ending barrage of meaningless security alerts,” he added.

This year’s widespread adoption of remote working practices in the wake of Covid-19 lockdowns has increased companies’ reliance on cloud computing systems.

In some cases, hackers have taken advantage of this new paradigm. An April joint report by the Department of Homeland Security and the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre cited an uptick in Covid-related cybercrime and increased vulnerabilities due to the “surge in teleworking.”

In a May interview with the Business Journal, Shua said these trends have boosted demand for Orca’s product and helped drive accelerated growth. The young company has raised more than $82 million since its founding last year.