Preempt raised $17.5 million in a Series B round supported by ClearSky, Blackstone, Intel Capital and General Catalyst. Preempt is the first company to deliver Identity and Access Threat Prevention, which allows enterprises to preempt threats in real time based on identity, behavior and risk. The funding will help Preempt in expanding operations to accelerate product innovation and go-to-market strategy. 

"ClearSky is thrilled to bring Preempt into our investment portfolio. Preempt's unique approach to breach prevention has made this a compelling investment for us," said Heim. "It was exciting to see Preempt take a radical new approach to solving vulnerabilities that lie at the core of virtually all enterprises and are commonly leveraged by attackers in major breaches." 

"Blackstone began its relationship with Preempt as a customer and, as we worked alongside them, we were encouraged by their execution and vision," said Adam Fletcher, chief information security officer at Blackstone. "As the perimeter changes to be more focused on identity and points of access, Preempt's identity-centric vision and adaptive measures represent a strong and innovative approach to preventing cyber threats in real time."

"Staying ahead of data breaches and access threats requires updated approaches to cybersecurity protection," said Wendell Brooks, senior vice president of Intel Corporation and president of Intel Capital. "Preempt's approach helps prevent unauthorized access across the enterprise while helping its customers save money."

The adaptive nature of Preempt's approach helps enterprises stop real threats before impact and ensures all transactions are verified, so business can remain fluid. Preempt has scaled to support some of the largest and most complex organizations and is now deployed in major Fortune 500 enterprise organizations, along with strong success in the finance, retail, healthcare and legal industries.

Preempt Platform key capabilities include:

• Real-Time Adaptive Security - Prevent threats in real-time across all network resources (on prem, cloud, SaaS, etc.) with the ability to continuously preempt threats based on identity, behavior and risk.
• Context Based Access Control - Determine and enforce who is able to access what resources and in what context without network segmentation or application development.
• Tool and Protocol Containment - Detect and control the misuse of network and operational tools (PSExec), prevent use of hacking tools, deeply inspect authentication protocols (NTLM, Kerberos, RPC, LDAP) and detect known issues like pass-the-hash.
• Unified Visibility - See all user activity in one place (access, behavior, history, profile, changes, locations, device, role, PW strength, privileges, VPN, SSO, etc.) along with consistent access visibility across all applications.
• Open and Extensible Architecture - Easily exchange intelligence and integration with other security solutions for greater context and enforcement.
  

"Our mission is to provide a more holistic approach around securing and protecting identity within the enterprise and to make it easier for enterprises to preempt threats before they impact the business," said Preempt CEO and co-founder Ajit Sancheti. "This investment, which was driven and supported by several practicing CISOs - including Patrick Heimand Adam Fletcher - validates our vision that the enterprise needs a new, modern approach to prevent security breaches and internal threats."

"Preempt's strong customer traction validates our vision and product market fit," said Roman Blachman, Preempt CTO, co-founder and head of Israeli Operations. "With this additional funding, we look forward to infusing our teams with more enterprise security expertise to help fuel the company's growth and momentum."

The new investment follows an $8 million Series A round in 2016 led by security leaders and innovators including: General Catalyst, Mickey Boodaei and Rakesh Loonkar, the founders of Trusteer; and Paul Sagan, former CEO of Akamai Technologies. This brings Preempt's total funding to $27.5 million. 

Watch as Ajit Sancheti, CEO of Preempt, shares his thoughts in this video: