Solo.io hit unicorn status today after raising another $135 million — but not intentionally — setting the company up to better compete in the still evolving managed service mesh space.

“We honestly did not need to raise [funds] whatsoever. We had tons of money in the bank,” Solo.io CEO Idit Levine said in an interview with SDxCentral. But the managed service mesh provider has been “growing like crazy,” with Levine citing the company’s 500% quarter-over-quarter growth. 

“More money will allow us to go faster, bigger, and stronger. And that's the reason that we took it,” Levine said.

This latest round of funding brings the firm's total investments to $171.5 million at a post-money valuation of more than $1 billion. The funding was led by Altimeter Capital, with participation from Redpoint Ventures and True Ventures.

Solo.io will use part of the funding to expand its sales, engineering, and marketing teams to mirror the growth of the company, Levine said. Part of this funding will also go toward product research and development.

Solo.io’s main product is its Gloo Mesh Enterprise, which provides service mesh management and an API gateway built for Istio environments. Levine explained that service meshes are still riddled with complexity, and the service mesh product customers want and need “is way more than just Istio."

A service mesh, like Istio or Linkerd, provides a layer of abstraction on top of Kubernetes to simplify container management. Solo.io’s Gloo Mesh Enterprise adds that layer of management atop Istio, along with access to long-term support, security, and observability across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. 

Solo.io's funding and unicorn status comes on the heels of rival Kong also reaching that ethereal status earlier this year. The firm closed on a $100 million funding boost on the back of its various service mesh efforts.

The funding pair indicates a growing maturity of the managed service mesh space and increased interest from VC firms. 

There is a lot of VC money in the market, particularly for solid companies that have survived the recent pandemic turbulence, Levine said.

“This latest funding emphasizes that we are a safe, proven choice for enterprises looking to modernize their application network,” Levine said. “Our company is now at an inflection point in terms of growth — and this investment will fuel our next level of team, product, and company expansion.”