Upwind has closed a $400 million Series C that values the cloud security company at $3.8 billion, after declining an acquisition offer from Datadog at the same figure. The round lets the firm remain independent rather than fold into the public software vendor.
Datadog, a major provider of monitoring and observability tools, has been pushing deeper into security products as customers look to consolidate vendors. An acquisition would have given it a faster path into Upwind’s corner of cloud protection. Upwind instead raised capital that matches the reported sale price and keeps its own product roadmap.
The choice stands out because late stage private companies frequently accept cash from public buyers when valuations align. Selling can offer liquidity for employees and investors without another long wait for a public listing. By staying private, Upwind is betting it can grow beyond the $3.8 billion mark on its own.
By staying private, Upwind is betting it can grow beyond the $3.8 billion mark on its own.
Demand for cloud security has risen with the spread of public cloud infrastructure and with pressure on companies to lock down identities, workloads and configurations. Competition comes from specialists and from large platforms that bundle security with monitoring. Independence may help Upwind sell as an alternative to those suites, including Datadog’s own.
Few details of the Datadog talks have been made public, and the companies have not described how far negotiations went. The new funding does not resolve the rivalry. It does give Upwind more time and cash to hire, ship product and win customers that might have assumed a sale was imminent.
