Upwind Raises $400M at $3.8B Valuation After Rejecting Datadog Acquisition Offer
Upwind chose independence after Datadog offered to acquire it at the same $3.8B valuation, without a premium. The San Francisco cloud-security startup raised $400M in an October 2026 Series C led by Bessemer and projects about $90M ARR by year-end.
Cloud security startup Upwind has raised a $400 million Series C round at a $3.8 billion valuation, turning down an acquisition offer from Datadog at the same price to remain independent. The round, announced in October 2026, was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Greylock Partners and Craft Ventures.
The funding comes nine months after Upwind closed a $250 million round at a $1.5 billion valuation. According to a person familiar with the matter, the new financing nearly fell through after Datadog — a publicly traded software monitoring company — approached Upwind with a buyout offer. Because Datadog did not offer a premium above the $3.8 billion valuation already set by venture investors, Upwind chose to stay independent.
Founded four years ago and based in San Francisco, Upwind uses AI to secure cloud infrastructure through what it calls “runtime” security — detecting and addressing attacks and vulnerabilities in active services in real time. The company was founded by Amiram Shachar, who previously sold cloud spend management startup Spot.io to NetApp for $450 million.
Upwind has been adding $20 million to $30 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR) each quarter and is projected to reach roughly $90 million in ARR by year’s end, according to a person familiar with its financials. That puts its valuation at more than 40 times forecast ARR — a common pricing benchmark for software companies, though below the roughly 80x ARR multiple commanded by cybersecurity peer Cyera.
By declining the Datadog offer, Upwind is signaling confidence that its long-term value will exceed $3.8 billion. However, given that few cybersecurity companies have gone public in recent years, a sale may still be the most likely eventual outcome. The company is said to continue attracting acquisition interest.