Atlassian’s VC arm backs cybersecurity startup in $15 million Seed round

Sydney cloud-based cybersecurity startup Plerion has raised US$10 million (A$15m) in a Seed round led by Prosus Ventures, a South African-owned, Netherlands-listed global consumer internet investor.

The round was supported by US investment firm Cercano and Atlassian Ventures. 

The funds will be used on accelerated product development, talent acquisition, and go-to-market strategies. 

Plerion was founded in late 2021 by Cloud Conformity founder Mike Rahmati (CEO), his work colleague Paul Garner (COO), and Pierre Liddle (CTO). It’s an all-in-one cloud security platform that supports AWS, Azure and Google Cloud workloads, aims to use the raised funds to speed up product development, add more staff and develop go-to-market strategies.

Rahmati said closing their Seed round was a testament to the strength of their team and its work.

“This investment will empower us to enhance our capabilities further, hire top-tier talent, and drive the adoption of our cutting-edge solutions to protect businesses and individuals from cyber threats,” he said. 

Sachin Bhanot, head of Southeast Asia & ANZ investments for Prosus Ventures said the Australian startup complements their existing cybersecurity portfolio very well, demonstrating impressive early adoption and traction, while Cerano managing director MJ Yu, said they “see immense potential” in the platform that Plerion is building.

Atlassian Ventures boss Peter Lenke said Plerion’s all-in-one security platform aligns with Atlassian’s focus on simple security.

“We believe Plerion’s elegant solution will scale well for our 200,000-plus cloud customers, especially our enterprise customers,” he said.