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Tanium<\/a> hasn\u2019t had the best year, but\u00a0a\u00a0new stock sale is telegraphing\u00a0that\u00a0while the company may be down, it\u2019s far from out. This morning, the 10-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based company,\u00a0whose technology enables organizations to continuously scan all endpoints in a network to detect vulnerabilities and unmanaged devices, is announcing that it has raised $100 million led by the private equity firm TPG<\/a>.<\/p>\n The deal assigns the\u00a0company a post-money valuation of\u00a0\u00a0$3.75 million, meaning Tanium is\u00a0essentially priced the same as when it last raised roughly $150\u00a0million from investors in 2015 at a post-money valuation of $3.65 billion.<\/p>\n Tanium\u2019s CEO, Orion Hindawi, says the company has $300 million in cash and investor capital in the bank and that it didn\u2019t need to raise money.<\/p>\n Instead, he says,\u00a0the company\u00a0\u201crealized there was an opportunity to do a secondary [sale]\u201d that could provide early employees and shareholders with some liquidity, while also getting heavy-hitting TPG involved in its future success.\u00a0(\u201cI want institutional investors on our cap table who can help [do an eventual public offering] right,\u201d Hindawi explains.)<\/p>\n Hindawi adds that none of the outfit\u2019s previous institutional investors \u2014 including its biggest outside shareholder, Andreessen Horowitz\u00a0\u2014 are selling any of their shares, saying the secondary instead involves\u00a0\u201cfriends and family.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u00a0also claims\u00a0that Tanium has already conducted secondary sales \u201cmultiple times\u201d in the past to \u201clessen the pressure\u201d on both employees as well as Tanium, which aims to go public on its own timeline.<\/p>\n Certainly, Tanium isn\u2019t the first Silicon Valley outfit to allow early investors and employees to wring real money out of their paper holdings while making their way toward an\u00a0initial public offering. Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Pinterest, Zynga and Automattic are among many companies that have enabled\u00a0employees and early investors to cash out of some of their privately held shares.<\/p>\n Still, with\u00a0Tanium\u2019s previous secondary sales conducted so quietly, it\u2019s easy to wonder why the company is today choosing to broadcast its newest stock sale.<\/p>\n The answer seemingly traces\u00a0in part to a string of high-profile departures at the company, some of them highlighted\u00a0last month in\u00a0a stinging article<\/a> in Bloomberg that characterized Hindawi as egotistical, abusive\u00a0to employees, and a cheat who, according to Bloomberg\u2019s sources, has\u00a0\u201cfired workers before they could cash in their stock options\u2014a practice that had the effect of fortifying his control over the company.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a good look for Hindawi, who quickly\u00a0responded with an \u201copen letter<\/a>\u201d in his own defense, and who today calls Bloomberg\u2019s allegations \u201crepulsive.\u201d<\/p>\n Of accusations that he unfairly\u00a0terminated employees, he says there is \u201cno correlation between [employees\u2019] vesting dates and when we separated\u201d and calls Bloomberg\u2019s report\u00a0\u201cprovably untrue.\u201d<\/p>\n Specifically, he says, soon after Bloomberg published its story, Tanium\u2019s\u00a0board \u201cran an investigation [with the help of a third party] because we take this stuff very seriously . . . They didn\u2019t find a whiff [of malfeasance]\u00a0but rather former employees who\u2019d left because they weren\u2019t a fit, because of an ethics issue, or for cause.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about nine senior executives who\u2019ve left the company in the last nine months \u2014 \u00a0including Tanium\u2019s president, its former CMO, and its former chief of operations and finance\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Hindawi acknowledges that the culture can be hard-nosed but dismisses the\u00a0departures as growing pains.<\/p>\n \u201cTanium isn\u2019t a cuddly environment. We\u2019re not a cuddly product. We\u2019re at war with a cyber environment that\u2019s really unfriendly to our customers; they\u2019re asking for a solution that protects them against that existential threat. I don\u2019t apologize for bringing in the best people to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Hindawi somewhat famously started Tanium with his father, David Hindawi, who is the company\u2019s executive chairman. The two had previously cofounded an earlier company, BigFix, that they sold to IBM in 2010.<\/p>\n Last month, shortly before Bloomberg published its story,\u00a0Tanium\u00a0\u2014 which now employs 550 people\u00a0\u2014 hired<\/a>\u00a0Fazal Merchant from DreamWorks Animation to be its\u00a0new operations and finance chief. Hindawi says an \u201cincredible pipeline of people\u201d continue to gravitate to the company.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople assume assume there\u2019s something behind\u201d transition at the company, but \u201ccompanies change as they experience hyper growth and their needs change,\u201d says Hindawi. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean that [employees who\u2019ve left] aren\u2019t great people. In many cases, I\u2019ve\u00a0[served as a reference for] them. But our goal isn\u2019t to keep people; it\u2019s to serve our customers. We owe it to the\u00a0550 families that depend on us to do a great job and build the best company we can.\u201d<\/p>\n Institutional Venture Partners joined TPG in Tanium\u2019s newest round of funding. IVP is among the company\u2019s earlier backers, which, in addition to Andreessen Horowitz, also includes\u00a0T. Rowe Price, Franklin Templeton Investments, Geodesic Capital, and Citi Ventures. The company has now raised $407 million altogether.<\/p>\n In addition to Bloomberg\u2019s story, Tanium was called out<\/a> last month by the Wall Street Journal for not seeking the approval of one of its clients,\u00a0El Camino Hospital in Santa Clara, Ca., whose internal network Tanium\u00a0showed externally for several years to prospective new clients as a way of demonstrating the efficacy of its own software.<\/p>\n Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tanium publicly disputed<\/a> the\u00a0Journal\u2019s characterization of\u00a0how it presents information to clients during its sales pitches. It also acknowledge that it \u201cshould have done better, anonymizing that customer\u2019s data.\u201d<\/p>\n Photo of Orion Hindawi courtesy of Tanium.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/05\/screen-shot-2017-05-24-at-11-16-28-pm.png?w=680\")
Tanium hasn’t had the best year, but\u00a0a\u00a0new stock sale is telegraphing\u00a0that\u00a0while the company may be down, it’s far from out. This morning, the 10-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based company,\u00a0whose technology enables organizations to continuously scan all endpoints in a network to detect vulnerabilities and unmanaged devices, is announcing that it has raised $100 million led by… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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