Managed detection and response provider Expel Inc. announced today that it has raised $140.3 million in new funding to invest in product research and development, introduce new capabilities and accelerate growth.

Alphabet Inc.’s CapitalG and Paladin Capital led the Series E round. Also participating in the round were Cisco Investments, March Capital, Index Ventures, Scale Venture Partners and Greycroft. The valuation on the round is described as being over $1 billion, giving Expel unicorn status.

Founded in 2016, Expel offers an MDR solution that gives customers 24/7 coverage that covers everything from cloud applications and infrastructure to networks and endpoints. Offered on a security operations center-as-a-service basis, the platform uses security signals its customers already own to get improved value from their existing security investments.

The platform connects to customer technology remotely through application programming interfaces so its SOC can detect and respond to threats within minutes. The platform has four main parts: detection, which includes an additional layer of security with custom rules; investigation and response to find out exactly what happened and what to do about it; remediation with the automatic fixing of issues when they arise; and hunting for threats through proactive screening on-premises and the cloud.

Expel says that by understanding and adapting to each customer’s unique environment, the service finds gaps in current coverage and closes them with its own detections. The service also filters false positives and offers customers a “focus on what matters” by prioritizing threats. When threats are found, specific actions are put forward to resolve each issue.

“These past two years have presented unique challenges that, I think it’s safe to say, most of us couldn’t have anticipated,” Dave Merkel, chief executive officer of Excel, said in a statement. “Yet, during this time we scaled our platform to handle an 82% increase in security events a day, doubled the number of technology partners and more than doubled the number of security investigations.”

Notable Expel customers include Delta Air Lines Inc., Hogan Lovells International LLP, DoorDash Inc., CDW Corp. and Better Holdco Inc. Including the new funding, Expel has raised $257.9 million to date.

Image: Expel