Palo Alto sets up VC fund for security applications

Palo Alto Networks is forming a $20-million security venture fund to provide early stage investments to fuel development of security applications for the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform.

The fund will be aimed at seed-, early- and growth-stage security companies with a cloud-based application approach.

These companies can accelerate their routes to market for their respective technology by developing cloud-based applications built upon the Palo Alto Networks platform and the new Palo Alto Networks Application Framework, easily engaging the tens of thousands of Palo Alto Networks customer deployments.

The fund expects to collaborate with Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital to identify and evaluate innovative security applications for potential co-investment.

By providing capital, the fund aims to enable entrepreneurs and security vendors to focus on developing high-value functionality for customers, instead of developing the infrastructure and data stores necessary to effectively deliver their applications and establish a foothold in the market.

The investments in entrepreneurial security companies are designed to accelerate the development of new security applications for the Palo Alto Networks platform.

Such applications will help customer organizations more easily access, evaluate, and adopt new advanced security capabilities and activate cloud-delivered security applications from different providers as their security needs change.

“This new fund represents an essential part of our mission to help organizations prevent cyber breaches by inspiring and accelerating a groundswell of security innovation in a model that can be easily accessed and deployed by customer organizations,” Palo Alto Networks.SVP for business and corporate development Chad Kinzelberg said.