GV and Decibel co-led the round having previously backed the U-M networking cybersecurity company alongside Greylock Partners in 2016.

Censys, a US-based networking cybersecurity spinout of University of Michigan, has attracted $15.5m in a series A round co-led by GV, a corporate venturing arm of technology conglomerate Alphabet. Decibel, an independent venture capital firm launched by networking equipment manufacturer Cisco, co-led the round, which also included Greylock Partners. Founded in 2017, Censys has developed cybersecurity technology iterating on the open-source software ZMap, which searches the internet for devices connected from the client’s network that may be operating without use of a firewall, making them vulnerable to hackers. ZMap was developed by the same team that co-founded Censys. The idea is to help enterprises keep tabs on systems such as internet-of-things devices should they connect against the client’s wishes. Censys will spend the money on a recruitment drive focused on sales, engineering and leadership to double its headcount to 100 within the next year. The spinout is the result of research co-led by J. Alex Halderman, professor of computer science and engineering at University of Michigan, and his PhD student David Adrian as well as Zakir Durumeric, assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University. GV and Greylock had already co-led a $2.6m seed round for Censys in late 2018 backed by assorted unnamed angel investors. Karim Faris, general partner at GV, said: “The Censys team has made substantial progress laying the groundwork for wide-scale internet scanning, and continues to deliver on its promise of providing better security with data. “Led by the creators of ZMap, the Censys team provides unprecedented breadth, depth and scale of risk assessment and visibility to information security practitioners at major enterprises.”

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