Semgrep said it completed the Series D round of $100 million in funding. It seems that application security is taking importance and, together with AI-enabled tools, how these technologies would be playing safe for software development processes.

Semgrep was founded in 2017 by Isaac Evans, Luke O’Malley, and Drew Dennison. Over time, Semgrep has turned into a fast-emerging critical player in the application security sector. 

The firm provides a product that allows developers to find security flaws in source code quickly and remediate it. It is initially an open-source tool; however, recently, Semgrep has also incorporated sophisticated features focused on enterprise security programs.

Semgrep raises $100 million in series D funding was led by Menlo Ventures, one of the prominent venture capital firms known for investing in technology and innovation. The existing investors in this round include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Felicis Ventures, Harpoon Ventures, and Redpoint Ventures. 

This latest capital infusion brings Semgrep’s total funding to about $204 million, indicating how much investors believe in the vision and technological prowess of the company 2

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The Semgrep platform is designed to help developers identify security vulnerabilities in their source code. The function is increasingly essential because modern software development makes widespread use of open-source components. By applying AI and advanced static analysis, Semgrep allows developers to detect possible security issues early in the development lifecycle. This reduces the risk of vulnerabilities in applications deployed in the field.

Transition to a Commercial Model

While Semgrep started off as an open-source tool, the company has migrated some of its more advanced features to a paid model in an attempt to support further development and respond to the demands of enterprise clients. 

This has sparked debate within the open-source community. However, Semgrep still offers a community edition free to the individual developer, ensuring that the tool remains open to the maximum number of people possible. The commercial platform is specifically tailored to meet needs of enterprise security programs by having powerful abilities and support in place.

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The newly obtained funding would be spent on a few key areas:

• AI Development: It will strengthen the AI capabilities to enhance detection accuracy and efficiency of vulnerabilities.
• Sales and Marketing Expansion: Expand market coverage for attracting new customers and growing with existing ones.
• Team Development- Hiring more talented employees to complement product development, customer support, among other core functions.

These strategic plays are made to ensure that Semgrep leads in application security and encourage wide industry take-up of its platform.

Open-source components have dominated the world of software development with increased dependency. This, therefore, raises a need for adequate security tools in the software world. Semgrep’s platform fills this gap through its provision to developers on vulnerability identification and remediation in codebases. 

Focusing on integration of AI within its platform has been aligned by the company to broader industry trends towards automation and intelligent threat detection.

Source: Semgrep