Ordr raises $40M for IoT monitoring tool 

Today, connected device monitoring provider Ordr announced it has raised $40 million as part of a series C funding round, co-led by Battery Ventures and Ten Eleven Ventures, to enhance its IoT monitoring solution for enterprises. 

The funding brings the organization’s total funding raised to date to $90 million, and comes as organizations need more support identifying, managing and securing connected devices from internet of things devices (IoT), internet of medical things devices (IoMT) and operational technology (OT). 

Ordr helps enterprises monitor IoT connected devices as part of a real-time inventory, which provides details on the device’s model, serial number and location, to help security teams identify devices with vulnerabilities, weak passwords or certifications, while using machine learning to identify anomalous activity on each device. 

Keeping up with IoT sprawl 

The announcement comes as the number of IoT devices deployed has increased substantially, with research showing the number of global IoT connections grew by 8% in 2021 to reach a total of 12.2 billion active endpoints. 

As IoT devices increase in number, there is a growing need for organizations to deploy solutions to maintain visibility over these connected devices that are inadequately protected by traditional security solutions. 

“Connected devices such as IoT, IoMT and OT make up about 45% of devices in the network. But they’re not always designed with security in mind, often run outdated operating systems and can significantly increase the attack surface,” said president and CEO of Ordr, Greg Murphy. 

“Organizations need to not only gain visibility into devices and their risks, understand how they are behaving and implement appropriate policies to secure them. For organizations to move quickly from ‘detection’ to ‘response’ requires insights into the compromised device, where it’s located, and what policies can be applied,” Murphy said.  

At a high level, Ordr aims to address these challenges by offering security teams comprehensive threat detection capabilities and automated policy enforcement so that they can secure each device in the environment and mitigate the risk of intrusions. 

The IoT security market 

As more organizations experiment with IoT devices, they are starting to invest heavily in solutions to manage these devices, particularly as the IoT technology market is expected to grow from $384.5 billion in 2020, to $566.4 billion by 2027.

Ordr is up against a range of competitors in the IoT security market, including Palo Alto Networks, which now offers an IoT security solution that uses machine learning to provide visibility into IT devices, detecting anomalous activity on the devices and providing automatic zero-trust policy recommendations. 

Palo Alto Networks recently reported it anticipates generating total revenue between $5.48 billion to $5.50 billion in 2022. 

Another competitor is Armis, an agentless device intelligence solution that can automatically discover IoT devices, apps, and cloud and virtual instances, to create an asset inventory database with continuous vulnerability assessment capabilities. Armis recently raised $300 million in funding and achieved a $3.4 billion valuation.  

Where does Ordr fit in? 

While there are a range of providers in the IoT security market, Murphy argues that Ordr differentiates itself from competing solutions based on its user experience. 

“Our focus on the user experience is what makes us different from other solutions on the market. We want to make it as simple as possible for customers to see what is connected to their network, understand where the potential problems are and utilize policy automation to secure those at risk.” 

In practice, that means the ability to discover devices without an agent, accurately classify and obtain granular details on each device, and reactively apply proactive and retroactive policies to make those insights actionable.