A startup offering an “enterprise browser” has achieved unicorn status just weeks after emerging from stealth.

Island, which announced on February 1, today said it had completed a Series B funding round raising $115 million and increasing its valuation to $1.3 billion. Founded in 2020, Island is now in prestigious company as one of the fastest startups to ever reach unicorn status (meaning a valuation over $1 billion).

Leading the investment round was venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners, whose co-founder and chief executive Jeff Horing describes Island as a product addressing a real market need.

“Our market research in this space shows real need and strong customer response to the Island Enterprise Browser category, which naturally led us to a substantial increased investment in this important opportunity,” Horing said.

Insight Partners has also invested in Shopify, Qualtrics, DocuSign, Docker, Mimecast, and other brands you’ve probably heard of.

Original investment partners Stripes and Sequoia Capital also participated in the round, bringing the total to over $200 million.

What is an Enterprise Browser?

Island describes the modern web browser as the most widely used business application, despite the fact that there isn’t a single browser designed specifically for business use. Island Enterprise Browser, built on Chromium, aims to be the secure alternative by design.

Island’s browser is centrally managed like other corporate assets and allows corporate security teams to control user functionality such as copy, paste, upload and download, capture screens and other ways potential exfiltration. Advanced security features are also available, such as intelligent network routing, MFA enforcement, and everything IT teams need to manage in the last mile of user connectivity.

The browser also offers what Island called an alternative to “poor VDI software”, enabling a native experience on the user’s computer while maintaining security and granular control through things like Safe Browsing. integrated, web filtering, web isolation, exploit prevention. , and zero-trust network access.

Island believes the key to its appeal is how it looks and feels like any other Chromium browser, and how it integrates security in a non-obstructive way: the theory is that everything is controlled behind the scenes, and all users need to do is keep working.

“The enthusiasm from our customers and the IT community has been overwhelming,” said Mike Fey, CEO and co-founder of Island. Fey has toured a number of major enterprise security companies, including McAfee, where he was EVP and CTO and most recently President and COO at Symantec, a position that ended in 2018 when Fey was pursuing board positions at security-focused startups, including Axis. Security. Fey’s founding partner, Dan Amiga, has held security-focused roles at Symantec in addition to joining Fey in board appointments.

Island’s tests at several Fortune 500 companies in September 2021 were positive and indicated increased market demand for its product, the company said. ®