Jeff Hussey. (Tempered Networks)

Seattle-based Tempered Networks has raised an additional $17 million to invest in engineering, sales resources, and partnerships. The company confirmed the new funding to GeekWire this week.

The fresh cash brings total funding to $57 million, with backing from Ignition Venture Partners, IDG Ventures, Fluid Capital, Ridge Ventures and Rally Capital.

Founded in 2014 by Jeff Hussey, who formerly helped launch F5 Networks, Tempered Networks builds products around the idea of zero trust networking, in which anything that connects to a network must pass an identification test. That’s in contrast to the traditional approach of trusting people and machines who are connected the organization’s network on site or through VPNs, while keeping out bad actors with firewalls.

The company’s main technology, called “identity defined networking,” is a platform for zero trust networking. Connections are granted based on a whitelist that identifies trusted entities and gives access to the network. Tempered also claims to make the process of creating and managing networks easy with a simple point-and-click interface.

Tempered’s customers include oil drillers, electrical substations, hospitals and smart buildings.

The 55-person startup has recently been working on improving its platform to accommodate the growth with internet-of-things devices. It has also partnered with Delta Control to build secure systems for smart buildings.

Tempered is part of a hive of cybersecurity activity in Seattle, joining startups including Auth0, ExtraHop, DefenseStorm and Polyverse, among others.

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