DNSFilter

DNSFilter

Ken Carnesi and Brian Gillis started DNSFilter in October 2015 with the goal of building what the company calls "the best DNS filter on the market." Carnesi, who had experience with existing DNS security solutions, designed the product to combine threat blocking with ease of use. The company has grown to over 140 employees. DNSFilter's core product is a protective DNS service that blocks access to malicious and unwanted content across all devices, on and off a network. The company uses machine learning to categorize threats and supplements its own data with external feeds. DNSFilter serves enterprises, managed service providers (MSPs), and small-to-medium businesses. Its dual Anycast network claims to be the world's fastest DNS resolver. Notable acquisitions include Guardian, a privacy-protecting firewall for mobile devices, and Webshrinker, a threat intelligence provider. The company's customer base exceeds 45,000 organizations, and it blocks millions of threats daily. The company has raised a total of $48.5 million in disclosed venture funding. Insight Partners and Arthur Ventures led a $33.5 million Series A in 2021, followed by a $15 million Series A extension. DNSFilter maintains its headquarters at 80 M St SE in Washington, DC. A recent acquisition: in 2023, DNSFilter acquired Zorus, a security platform aimed at MSPs, to expand its managed-security capabilities. DNSFilter operates as a venture-backed cybersecurity product company rather than an investment firm or family office. Its differentiation lies in combining AI-driven threat detection with a globally distributed DNS network, enabling real-time blocking without requiring on-premises hardware. The company distributes primarily through MSP partners, counting more than 3,000 such relationships.