Tailscale, which has developed what it calls “a new kind of corporate VPN,” has closed a $14.5 million CAD ($12 million USD) Series A round of funding.
The funding announcement comes just seven months after Tailscale launched its product and disclosed it had raised $3 million in seed funding. TailScale’s total capital raised to date sits at $19.5 million CAD ($15 million USD).
Tailscale was created by a group of former Google software engineers.
The Series A raise was led by Accel, with participation from Heavybit, which led the seed round, and fellow existing investor Uncork Capital.
Founded in 2019, Tailscale was created by a group of former Google software engineers. The startup claims to make network security accessible to teams of any scale. TailScale’s technology helps remote teams securely access services without the “long setup times of traditional VPNs.” Its technology is based on Google’s zero-trust BeyondCorp architecture and built using the WireGuard protocol and does not require hardware or infrastructure. It is meant to reduce VPN setup from weeks to minutes.
“Legacy VPNs were never designed with the modern workforce or fully distributed teams in mind,” said Heavybit partner Joe Ruscio, in April. “Tailscale’s platform is built on proven technology and is the fastest to implement, keeping employees reliably connected no matter their location.”
TailScale itself operates as a fully remote company. It was founded by CEO Avery Pennarun, who is based on Montréal, Toronto-based David Carney (COO), as well as David Crawshaw (CTO) and Brad Fitzpatrick, who are both based in the United States.
Since launching its product in April, TailScale claims to have served tens of thousands of customers a month including DC Energy’s trading markets and Oxide’s bare metal business.
The company plans to use its Series A funds to grow its engineering team and build out its first marketing and sales teams.
Image source Unsplash. Photo by Christin Hume.
