Security startup Preempt raised $17.5 million in a Series B with funding from ClearSky, Blackstone, Intel Capital, and General Catalyst. This brings the company’s total funding to $27.5 million.

The company’s platform “preempts” threats (hence the name) based on identity, behavior, and risk. Its customers are Fortune 500 enterprises in finance, retail, healthcare, and legal industries. One of Preempt’s new investors — Blackstone — started as a customer.

“As the perimeter changes to be more focused on identity and points of access, Preempt’s identity-centric vision and adaptive measures represent a strong and innovative approach to preventing cyber threats in real time,” said Adam Fletcher, chief information security officer at Blackstone.

In a blog post, CEO and co-founder Ajit Sancheti, said the latest funding round validates his company’s approach to security. Preempt is the first company to develop a platform that provides identity and access threat prevention and real-time response, he said.

“As enterprises transition to the cloud and the perimeter disappears, identity is the new perimeter,” Sancheti wrote. “If identity is the new perimeter, access management from a security standpoint can lead to effective threat prevention.”

Sancheti previously co-founded Mu Dynamics, Spirent Communications acquired for $40 million in 2012. Before Mu Dynamics he worked in corporate development at Juniper Networks. He was also a member of the team that developed an intrusion detection and prevention system at OneSecure. NetScreen acquired OneSecure for $40.3 million in 2002.

The Preempt platform looks for threats across on-premises, cloud, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and all other network resources based on identity, behavior, and risk. It provides context-based access control, enforcing who is able to access what resources and in what context. It can also detect and control the misuse of network and operational tools and prevent hacking and other known security threats.

Security teams can see all applications and user activity in one place. This includes access, behavior, history, profile, changes, locations, devices, role, pass-word strength, privileges, virtual private networks, and single sign-on. And the platform’s open architecture allows it to integrate with other security tools.

Preempt’s Series B follows two other high-scoring funding rounds for other security startups this week. Jask raised $25 million in Series B funding, bringing its total to $39 million. And Balbix raised $20 million also in its Series B, bringing its total to $28.6 million.

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