Upwind, a San Francisco startup that uses AI to secure cloud infrastructure, has raised a $400 million Series C round at a $3.8 billion valuation led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from existing backers including Greylock Partners and Craft Ventures. The fresh funding, which has been in the works for months, nearly fell apart after Datadog attempted to buy the company, according to a person familiar with Upwind. Datadog is a publicly traded company that sells tools for monitoring how software runs, known as observability. It didn't offer a premium above the $3.8 billion valuation set by venture capital investors, the person said, so Upwind decided to stay independent. Four-year-old Upwind has grown rapidly amid rising AI-driven cybersecurity threats. The startup has been adding $20 million to $30 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR) each quarter and is projected to end the year at roughly $90 million, according to a person familiar with Upwind's...
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