Cloud security company Zscaler opens its doors to investors, gets $38M

The saying “Trying to catch a cloud and pin it down” is how many people feel about cloud security. But Zscaler believes it can actually do the job, and so does its first round of investors including Lightspeed Ventures, which just pumped $38 million into the company.

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Zscaler’s set of products helps customers manage e-mail, Web activity, mobile devices, and various coud applications such as Salesforce through one hub, the “Secure Cloud Gateway.” The company calls it a “check post for all Internet traffic.” In the Secure Cloud Gateway, companies can set various policies and rules which the apps and devices must follow, and the secure gateway enforced those policies.

The San Jose company is far from alone when it comes to trying to protect the cloud. The fact is, people are bringing their smartphones to work and using social networks to be more productive in their projects, and companies are realizing that they don’t want to inhibit an employee by blocking their means of productivity with a firewall. So companies such as Zscaler, Qualys (which recently filed to go public), and on the mobile side, Mocana, are coming up with a slew of new ways to protect enterprises from the bad guys.

Thus far, Zscaler’s Secure Cloud Gateway protects its 2,500 enterprise customers, or over eight million. These customers are located across 160 different countries and the product itself monitors and protects over five billion “transactions” each day. In order to do this, the company has set up 100 different data centers, located globally, to deal with the traffic.

Aside from the Secure Cloud Gateway, Zscaler also conducts regular research in the field, which can be found in its ThreatLabZ section.

The company was founded in 2007 and hasn’t taken on venture funding in the past. It plans to pour the $38 million from this round into its products.

Security camera image via Shutterstock