Vanta, a startup with software for managing compliance with cybersecurity and privacy standards, said Wednesday that it closed its latest fundraising round at a roughly $4 billion valuation.

The $150 million round, which included funding from CrowdStrike’s venture arm, represents a valuation increase from $2.45 billion last year.

The jump reflects continued corporate investment in tools designed to limit fallout from cyberattacks. In recent days Microsoft rolled out updates to its SharePoint collaboration software after Chinese hackers gained access to customer data by exploiting a vulnerability.

Christina Cacioppo, Vanta’s co-founder and CEO, declined to specify the company’s revenue but said its growth rate is “in the ballpark of the best SaaS companies,” referring to software as a service vendors. Deal sizes are growing and more clients are coming onboard, she said.

The startup, which tracks adherence to frameworks such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001, boasts more than 12,000 customers. Many of them sell software to large companies, including Atlassian and Snowflake, Cacioppo said. But Vanta can also help businesses outside of the tech industry more quickly complete security reviews before engaging outside suppliers.

Cacioppo and Erik Goldman started the San Francisco-based company in 2018 and have built it up to more than 1,000 employees. Competitors include Auditboard and Drata.

In addition to CrowdStrike Ventures, other investors in the round included Wellington Management, Atlassian Ventures, JPMorgan Chase and Sequoia Capital.

Vanta has raised $504 million since 2021. The company hasn’t touched any of the $150 million it raised last year, Cacioppo said.

Uber announced a new feature Wednesday that pairs women drivers and riders, in its latest move to address safety on the ride-hailing platform.

The new tool, which the platform will begin piloting next month in the U.S., allows women passengers to match with women drivers when booking or pre-booking rides, and create a preference in their app settings. Women drivers can also choose to drive women.

“It’s about giving women more choice, more control, and more comfort when they ride and drive,” Camiel Irving, Uber’s vice president of U.S. and Canada operations, said in a release.

The company said the rider’s preference isn’t guaranteed but the feature increases the chances women will be paired in the app.

Uber will pilot the program in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit. The company also said it tested the feature in countries such as France, Germany and Argentina.

This isn’t Uber’s first foray into gender preferences on its platform.

In 2019, Uber rolled out a women rider preference feature for female drivers in Saudi Arabia after women won the right to drive in 2018. That offering later expanded to about 40 countries.

Over the years, ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft have faced safety concerns and questions over the roles these platforms have played in various sexual assault and harassment incidents.

Meta on Wednesday introduced new safety features for teen users, including enhanced direct messaging protections to prevent “exploitative content.”

Teens will now see more information about who they’re chatting with, like when the Instagram account was created and other safety tips, to spot potential scammers. Teens will also be able to block and report accounts in a single action.

“In June alone, they blocked accounts 1 million times and reported another 1 million after seeing a Safety Notice,” the company said in a release.

This policy is part of a broader push by Meta to protect teens and children on its platforms, following mounting scrutiny from policymakers who accused the company of failing to shield young users from sexual exploitation.

Meta said it removed nearly 135,000 Instagram accounts earlier this year that were sexualizing children on the platform. The removed accounts were found to be leaving sexualized comments or requesting sexual images from adult-managed accounts featuring children.

The takedown also included 500,000 Instagram and Facebook accounts that were linked to the original profiles.

Meta is now automatically placing teen and child-representing accounts into the strictest message and comment settings, which filter out offensive messages and limit contact from unknown accounts.

Users have to be at least 13 to use Instagram, but adults can run accounts representing children who are younger as long as the account bio is clear that the adult manages the account.

The platform was recently accused by several state attorneys general of implementing addictive features across its family of apps that have detrimental effects on children’s mental health.

Meta announced last week it removed about 10 million profiles for impersonating large content producers through the first half of 2025 as part of an effort by the company to combat “spammy content.”

Congress has renewed efforts to regulate social media platforms to focus on child safety. The Kids Online Safety Act was reintroduced to Congress in May after stalling in 2024.

The measure would require social media platforms to have a “duty of care” to prevent their products from harming children.

Snapchat was sued by New Mexico in September, alleging the app was creating an environment where “predators can easily target children through sextortion schemes.”