Toronto-based startup Tailscale, led by CEO Avery Pennarun and co-founders David Carney and David Crawshaw, has raised $160 million in a Series C funding round led by Accel. This investment values the 150-person company at $1.5 billion, marking an increase from its $1 billion valuation in May 2022. Tailscale's technology enables secure network connections between systems without the need for a traditional VPN gateway, offering benefits such as lower latency. The company has over 10,000 customers, including notable tech firms like Instacart, Duolingo, Cohere, Mistral, Hugging Face, Groq, Perplexity, Telus Corp, SAP AG, and Motorola, and is on a path to becoming a leading infrastructure company. The funding round saw participation from existing investors such as CRV and Uncork Capital, who have been with Tailscale since its Series B and initial investment rounds in 2022 and 2020, respectively. Accel's continued support underscores their belief in Tailscale's potential to redefine connectivity, particularly as a critical tool for AI startups.