Censys raises $70M, including $40M Series D and $30M debt financing, led by Morgan Stanley. The funds will accelerate AI-driven solutions for security operations.

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The internet security startup, based in Michigan tech hub Ann Arbor, which started as an open-source research project at the University of Michigan seven years ago, claims to provide a “complete database” of all devices hooked up to the internet in a bid to help organizations locate poorly protected assets. Censys’ attack surface management platform continuously discovers businesses’ internet assets and monitors them, identifying security issues and preventing oversights from becoming vulnerabilities by ensuring that assets are protected by integrating with existing security solutions. The company’s Series B investment, which comes after the startup secured $15.5 million in Series A funding in August 2020, was led by Intel Capital. The startup is already growing rapidly; Brooks tells TechCrunch that it is seeing triple-digit revenue growth year on year, and continues to add big-name customers, including FireEye, Google, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “The company is currently in the classic hyper-growth situation. The biggest problem the company has now is how fast it’s growing,” he says, adding that this has been driven by organizations’ shift to remote and hybrid working models and their accelerated adoption of cloud services.