Techstars Alum Distil Networks Raises $21M In Funding

Techstars

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I couldn’t be more proud to be a Techstars alumni. Heralded as one of the top startup accelerators in the US (and #1 globally) and harder to get into than Harvard, Techstars continues to make waves in the startup space.

Distil Networks

Today Distil Networks, another Techstars alum announced an additional $21M in funding. Distil has a great story behind them as well and like most startups it didn’t have to do with the domain name or the perfect product in the beginning, instead it had to do with the founders and their ability to execute:

When Essaid founded the company in 2011, he formed it with two friends he had known since the seventh grade, all of whom were coincidentally working in the security industry.
“I was working at my last job and customers were asking for [bot detection]. They were actively looking for a solution. I heard more and more clients complain about it [and nobody was offering it]. I got my friends together and said let’s do this,” Essaid said.
He quit his job and began fundraising, sleeping on friends couches. His partners stayed employed until Essaid was able to raise some seed funds and pay them a salary.
(Source – TechCrunch)

I had the chance to meet one of the Distil founders in Austin a few weeks ago and bought him a beer, so maybe I was one of the first to buy him a celebratory drink? Raising $21M is no small task and it takes an incredible team to make it happen.

Huge congrats to Essaid and the rest of the Distil Networks team…next time you’re buying the beer 🙂

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton