Menlo Security, which offers an isolation platform that separates enterprise networks from the public web, raises $75M led by JP Morgan Asset Management
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE :
Context & Ripple Effects
This round is the midpoint of a steady climb for Menlo Security: after emerging from stealth in 2015 with $25M promising to defeat malware through isolation rather than detection, it pulled in a Series C that already carried strategic money from banks — JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, American Express Ventures and Ericsson Ventures all participated.
JP Morgan Asset Management leading the $75M deepens that financial-sector tie from participant to lead investor, a bet that paid off visibly when Menlo later closed a $100M Series E at an $800M valuation. The thesis throughout: keep untrusted web code off the enterprise endpoint entirely.
First-order effects
- JP Morgan Asset Management takes a lead position in a vendor whose earlier backers included its own banking namesake's venture arm, extending Menlo's runway to scale its cloud isolation platform.
Second-order effects
- The round validates the isolation category against adjacent approaches like Edgewise Networks' microsegmentation, pressuring network-security rivals to argue their model or move budget toward cloud-side rendering.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — banks backing, deploying, and profiting from isolation — enterprise web defense structurally migrates off endpoints toward cloud infrastructure owned by security platforms, with financial institutions positioned as both buyers and financiers.
The trend: Enterprise security is shifting from detecting malware on devices to executing untrusted web content in isolated cloud environments, funded increasingly by the same financial institutions it protects.