Chicago-based tech startup Oak9 launches its Infrastructure-as-code security platform with $5.9M in seed funding

Oak9 is a Chicago-based tech startup that provides a cybersecurity SaaS platform for developers. Backed by a seed round of $5.9 million in funding, Oak9 today announced the launch of its Infrastructure as Code (IaC) security platform to help businesses accelerate the implementation of cloud-native applications while providing built-in, effective security.

The round was led by Menlo Ventures alongside Hyde Park Angels and Uncorrelated Ventures. As part of the investment, Oak9 said that Venky Ganesan, Partner at Menlo Ventures will join its board of directors along with Tim Tully, formerly CTO at Splunk and now Partner at Menlo Ventures. Oak9 will use the funding proceeds to continue to invest in R&D, further define the IaC security landscape, and acquire additional customers.

Founded in 2019 by Aakash Shah, Om Vyas, and Raj Datta, the oak9 platform is built for developers and blessed by security to accelerate delivery. It seamlessly integrates into the development pipeline, analyzes infrastructure as code, and builds security into cloud-native applications so they are secure and compliant by design.

“Infrastructure as code has accelerated the velocity of modern development teams by 10X, beyond the ability of security teams to keep up,” said Tully. “The rate of change and the complexity of continuously evolving architectures mean that large organizations can typically secure less than 15% of their applications. By integrating security starting in the design phase of the software development lifecycle, the oak9 platform allows development teams to maintain their velocity while identifying and remediating security gaps, ultimately producing cloud-native applications that are secure and compliant by design.”

Built into CI/CD workflows, the oak9 platform brings intelligent automation and seamless security to infrastructure as code. The platform’s pre-built security as code blueprints support any architecture on any cloud provider, and with automated design changes and continuous dynamic monitoring, the platform ensures security keeps up with evolving requirements and potential drift. Organizations gain a comprehensive view of security across the entire application architecture, not just individual configurations.

“Every day, businesses face a tradeoff: They can either wait for security or keep moving and accept the risk,” said Raj Datta, CEO of oak9. “oak9 was founded as a third option that supports both accelerated delivery and comprehensive security. We need to shift left even further than many organizations have considered to build security into product design. We need to go beyond just keywords and components to analyze security more comprehensively across the entire architecture. And we need continuous, dynamic monitoring to achieve ongoing security. This is exactly what we designed the oak9 platform to do.”

Below is a video overview of Oak9