Upwind, a San Francisco startup that uses AI to secure cloud infrastructure, has raised a $400 million Series C round at a $3.8 billion valuation led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from existing backers including Greylock Partners and Craft Ventures.

The round comes nine months after Upwind closed its previous $250 million financing at a $1.5 billion valuation.

The fresh funding, which has been in the works for months, nearly fell apart after Datadog attempted to buy the company, according to a person familiar with Upwind. Datadog is a publicly traded company that sells tools for monitoring how software runs, known as observability. It didn’t offer a premium above the $3.8 billion valuation set by venture capital investors, the person said, so Upwind decided to stay independent.

Four-year-old Upwind has grown rapidly amid rising AI-driven cybersecurity threats. The startup has been adding $20 million to $30 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR) each quarter and is projected to end the year at roughly $90 million, according to a person familiar with Upwind’s financials. That means that VCs and Datadog valued the startup at more than 40 times its forecast ARR, a common yardstick for pricing software companies. The high multiple is also well below the 80x ARR fetched by Cyera, another fast-growing cybersecurity startup, according to TechCrunch reporting from earlier this year.

Cybersecurity is poised to be the third big wave of AI software that companies will pay for after AI coding tools and customer support, Theory Ventures general partner Tomasz Tunguz recently wrote in his widely read blog.

By walking away from an acquisition offer, Upwind clearly believes that the company will ultimately be worth more than the $3.8 billion that Datadog was ready to pay for it. However, given how few cybersecurity companies have gone public in recent years, an eventual sale remains the most likely outcome for the startup.

Upwind continues to draw acquisition interest, according to a person familiar with the company.

The startup was founded by Amiram Shachar, who sold his previous company, the cloud spend management startup Spot.io, to NetApp for $450 million. Upwind calls its approach to thwarting threats “runtime” security, which means it alerts and remedies attacks and vulnerabilities in active services in real time.

TechCrunch has reached out to both Upwind and Datadog for comment.

The federal government says it has disbursed N249.6 billion to the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) in the past three years, representing 77.1 per cent of the N323.6 billion disbursed since the fund was established in 2019.

The government also plans to expand direct financing to at least 17,600 primary healthcare facilities and provide health insurance coverage for about 90,000 Nigerians in correctional facilities.

The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Iziaq Salako, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja during a ministerial briefing on three years of implementation of the fund under President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

Established under the National Health Act 2014, the BHCPF is designed to improve access to essential healthcare, particularly for poor and vulnerable Nigerians.

Mr Salako said the fund had become a key instrument for implementing the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative, launched in December 2023 to strengthen healthcare delivery and financing.

Disbursements and allocations

According to Mr Salako, total releases to the fund stood at N422.3 billion as of September 2026, with N323.6 billion disbursed.

He said the Ministerial Oversight Committee approved an additional N40.76 billion at its meeting on 14 October. The approval is expected to raise cumulative disbursements to N364.3 billion, including N290.2 billion under the Tinubu administration, according to the statement.

Speaking on the latest allocation, Mr Salako said N19.87 billion would go to the National Health Insurance Authority, N18.34 billion to the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, N2.04 billion to emergency medical treatment and N509.48 million to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

He said the allocations would support health insurance, primary healthcare services, emergency medical response and disease surveillance.

Mr Salako added that the government was working with the National Assembly to increase the fund’s statutory allocation from one per cent to two per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Health insurance and primary healthcare

On financial protection, Mr Salako said national health insurance enrolment increased from about 16.2 million people in 2023 to 23.06 million by the third quarter of 2026.

He said the BHCPF had supported insurance coverage for 3,182,943 vulnerable Nigerians with National Identification Numbers.

The fund, he added, had also supported free surgeries and rehabilitation for women with vesicovaginal fistula, emergency caesarean sections and other emergency obstetric and newborn care interventions for 96,068 women and babies.

Mr Salako said the oversight committee had also approved health insurance coverage for approximately 90,000 Nigerians in correctional facilities, with implementation expected to expand access to essential healthcare for inmates.

On primary healthcare delivery, he said direct facility financing currently supports 8,309 PHCs across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

He said the government planned to include a further 5,212 facilities, bringing the projected total to 13,521. However, the government’s broader target is to expand direct financing to at least 17,600 facilities.

Mr Salako added that the number of facilities attaining Level 2 readiness increased from 1,748 in 2024 to 3,202 in the third quarter of 2026.

He also said PHC attendance rose from 34.55 million in 2023 to 43.06 million by the second quarter of 2026.

Emergency services and health workers

On emergency medical services, Mr Salako said operational structures had been established in all 36 states and the FCT.

Through the Rural Emergency Service and Maternal Transport arrangements, emergency transport services had been established in 171 of the 172 local government areas covered by the Maternal and Newborn Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative. The government plans to extend the initiative to 200 local government areas by December 2026.

He said the emergency response system had recorded 168,571 ambulance service episodes since 2023, covering obstetric emergencies, neonatal and under-five emergencies, road traffic injuries, snakebites, burns and other urgent medical conditions.

Mr Salako said 78,054 frontline health workers had been trained towards a national target of 120,000.

He also said the oversight committee approved phased salary support for 13,800 community-based health workers and skilled birth attendants. Under the arrangement, the federal government would cover eligible salary costs in full in the first year, 67 per cent in the second year and 33 per cent in the third year, before state governments assume full responsibility.

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He said the committee had also approved the operationalisation of MEDIPOOL, a pooled procurement mechanism intended to improve access to essential medicines and health commodities, subject to quality assurance and accountability safeguards.

Accountability and next steps

Mr Salako urged state governments to fulfil their counterpart financing obligations and ensure sustainable funding for primary healthcare services. He commended Katsina State for releasing N240.79 million to its State Health Insurance Agency to support expanded coverage.

He said the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare was strengthening financial accountability through the implementation of the updated BHCPF Guidelines 2.0 and collaboration with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to track the use of public funds.

He emphasised that timely reporting, transparent payments, and expenditure verification were necessary to ensure funds reached healthcare facilities and translated into services for patients.

Mr Salako said the government remained committed to increasing domestic health financing and improving access to essential healthcare, particularly for vulnerable Nigerians.