Francisco Partners to Acquire Forcepoint from Raytheon Technologies

admin October 26, 2020

Francisco Partners to Acquire Forcepoint from Raytheon Technologies

Press Release – October 26 2020

Under new ownership Forcepoint will accelerate product development and growth

AUSTIN, Texas, WALTHAM, Mass., and SAN FRANCISCO, California — Forcepoint, a leading provider of cybersecurity solutions that protects the critical data and networks of thousands of customers throughout the world, and Francisco Partners, a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology and technology-enabled businesses, announced today that Francisco Partners has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Forcepoint from Raytheon Technologies.

“We have followed Forcepoint for years and have a deep appreciation for its outstanding portfolio of innovative security products,” said Brian Decker, Partner at Francisco Partners. “Security is an increasingly important strategic investment area for enterprises, creating significant opportunities for Forcepoint to continue to build upon its track record of success.”

“Executing divisional carve-outs has been a core focus of Francisco Partners since we founded the firm in 1999,” added Andrew Kowal, Partner at Francisco Partners. “We look forward to working with the Forcepoint management team to help the company realize its full potential as an independent company while delivering enhanced value to the company’s customers, partners, and the end users its products protect.”

Forcepoint offers a leading portfolio of cybersecurity solutions, helping enterprises worldwide monitor and protect networks, endpoints, data, and users. The company’s behavior-based solutions adapt to risk in real-time and are delivered through a cloud-native security platform that protects network users and cloud access, prevents confidential data from leaving the corporate network, and eliminates breaches caused by insiders. Thousands of customers in more than 150 countries trust Forcepoint to safeguard their organizations while driving digital transformation and growth and providing secure access that enables employees to create value.

“We are proud to have built an industry-leading portfolio of security products that protect our customers’ infrastructure, people, and data,” said Matt Moynahan, CEO of Forcepoint. “This transaction represents an exciting opportunity for Forcepoint to continue to innovate and drive growth with Francisco Partners. We believe that this partnership will help us to continue to invest in our products and organization while delivering increased value to our customers.”

Evan Daar, Principal at Francisco Partners, added, “Forcepoint has established a leadership position as a provider of cybersecurity solutions to customers around the world. We look forward to partnering with the Forcepoint team to further invest in the company’s cloud security portfolio.”

Debt financing for this transaction was provided by Credit Suisse. Paul Hastings LLP and Kirkland & Ellis acted as legal advisors to Francisco Partners. Barclays acted as exclusive financial advisor and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP acted as legal advisor to Raytheon Technologies. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory review.

About Forcepoint

Forcepoint is the global cybersecurity leader for user and data protection. Forcepoint’s behavior-based solutions adapt to risk in real-time and are delivered through a converged security platform that protects network users and cloud access, prevents confidential data from leaving the corporate network, and eliminates breaches caused by insiders. Based in Austin, Texas, Forcepoint creates safe, trusted environments for thousands of enterprise and government customers and their employees in more than 150 countries. For more information on Forcepoint, please visit www.forcepoint.com.

About Raytheon Technologies

Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an aerospace and defense company that provides advanced systems and services for commercial, military and government customers worldwide. With 195,000 employees* and four industry-leading businesses – Collins Aerospace Systems, Pratt & Whitney, Raytheon Intelligence & Space and Raytheon Missiles & Defense – the company delivers solutions that push the boundaries in avionics, cybersecurity, directed energy, electric propulsion, hypersonics, and quantum physics. The company, formed in 2020 through the combination of Raytheon Company and the United Technologies Corporation aerospace businesses, is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.
*As of 4/3/20

About Francisco Partners

Francisco Partners is a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology and technology-enabled businesses. Since its launch over 20 years ago, Francisco Partners has raised over $24 billion in committed capital and invested in more than 300 technology companies, making it one of the most active and longstanding investors in the technology industry. The firm invests in opportunities where its deep sectoral knowledge and operational expertise can help companies realize their full potential. For more information on Francisco Partners, please visit franciscopartners.com.

Media Contacts
Raytheon Technologies: Michele Quintaglie, corporatePR@rtx.com
Francisco Partners: Whit Clay and Dan Zacchei, wclay@sloanepr.com and dzacchei@sloanepr.com
Forcepoint: Joe Stunkard, joseph.stunkard@forcepoint.com

Categories: News

Tags: Cybersecurity

ReliaQuest Raises Over $300 Million in Growth Financing Led by KKR

admin August 25, 2020

August 25, 2020

TAMPA, Fla., Aug. 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — ReliaQuest, an advanced cybersecurity managed service and intelligence platform for global enterprises, today announced it has raised over $300 million in growth financing in a round led by leading global investment firm KKR, with participation from Ten Eleven Ventures and ReliaQuest founder and CEO Brian Murphy. The investment, which follows $30 million in growth equity from FTV Capital – who partnered with the firm in 2016 – will support ReliaQuest in accelerating the company’s growth initiatives, including international expansion and platform development.

Cybersecurity remains a top concern for enterprises as the complex threat landscape continues to evolve and the global shortage of cyber talent worsens. Many enterprises resort to an increasing number of security technologies, outsourcing to managed security services providers (MSSPs), or a combination of both. As a result, the MSSP market will grow nearly 15% YOY to reach $27.9 billion by the end of 2020, according to IDC. However, companies often fail to realize the value of these options due to poor performance and lack of effectiveness.

To bridge this gap, ReliaQuest developed a fundamentally different approach – providing customers a software platform, called GreyMatter, and a team of highly trained cyber analysts to deliver dramatically improved security effectiveness and efficiency. GreyMatter is the first cloud-native SaaS platform that consolidates, normalizes, and correlates data from customers’ existing cyber technologies, vastly increasing visibility across the enterprise. The platform leverages artificial intelligence and automation, which enable continuous threat detection, threat hunting, and remediation. As a result, customers benefit from a significantly more effective security posture and are able to maximize the value and effectiveness of their existing cybersecurity investments.

“ReliaQuest’s GreyMatter platform is supported by some of the top security talent in the industry, enabling enterprises to increase visibility across cloud and on-premises technologies, allowing them to reduce risk and compromises. The investment from KKR and Ten Eleven is an important step that allows ReliaQuest to continue to scale globally while innovating and accelerating the development of the GreyMatter platform and follows what was a foundational investment from FTV four years ago. The entire ReliaQuest team has worked hard to get where we are, and we are excited about the future as we continue to work alongside our customers to solve one of the largest technical challenges of our time,” said Brian Murphy, founder and CEO of ReliaQuest.

KKR’s investment in ReliaQuest follows several years of breakout growth and innovation in the cybersecurity market. The company’s revenue has grown more than 450% over the past three years on the strength of relationships with some of the world’s most prominent brands. The company plans to add another 100 employees to its ranks worldwide through the course of 2020, building on an industry-leading employee retention rate of 91% as reflected in major awards such as Fortune Best Workplaces in Technology, Deloitte Technology Fast 500, and Entrepreneur Top Company Cultures.

“With its best-in-class technology, ReliaQuest is helping companies protect their digital footprint, which is more important than ever. As a ReliaQuest customer ourselves, we’ve experienced firsthand how seamless and effective their platform is, and are thrilled to have the opportunity to invest behind it,” said Stephen Shanley, Director at KKR.

Patrick Devine, Principal at KKR, added, “We’re excited to be working with the ReliaQuest team as they continue to scale globally and help organizations secure their environments.”

Ten Eleven General Partner Mark Hatfield added, “In these challenging times, enterprises need powerful, resourceful solutions to manage their cybersecurity operations. ReliaQuest has developed a new approach to this challenge with its GreyMatter platform, giving security teams the ‘superpower’ to see more, detect and investigate faster, and make better decisions. We look forward to partnering with ReliaQuest as they offer enterprises a new way of obtaining advanced cybersecurity protection.”

KKR will be making the investment through its Next Generation Technology Growth Fund II, a fund dedicated to growth equity investment opportunities in the technology space. KKR has established a strong track record of supporting technology-focused growth companies, having invested over $2.7 billion in related investments since 2014. KKR and Ten Eleven Ventures have also supported market-leading cybersecurity companies including Darktrace, KnowBe4, Ping Identity, Cylance, and ForgeRock.

Advisors on the agreement include RBC Capital Markets, Sidley Austin LLP, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and Latham & Watkins LLP.

About ReliaQuest
ReliaQuest, a global leader in cybersecurity, delivers industry-leading visibility and automation on demand across complex environments with a platform purpose built to protect enterprise environments from security breaches. GreyMatter is the first cloud-native SaaS solution that enables visibility, coordination, and control across the enterprise’s on premise and multi-cloud technologies, unlocking the power of next generation cybersecurity for the modern enterprise. By increasing visibility and threat detection through the platform’s patented universal translator and use of automation and artificial intelligence, GreyMatter saves security teams valuable time and increases effectiveness by enabling automatic and continuous threat detection, threat hunting, and remediation. ReliaQuest is a private company headquartered in Tampa, Fla., with five global locations. In 2016, it received $30 million in growth equity from FTV Capital. For more information, visit www.reliaquest.com.

About KKR
KKR is a leading global investment firm that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, credit and real assets, with strategic partners that manage hedge funds. KKR aims to generate attractive investment returns for its fund investors by following a patient and disciplined investment approach, employing world-class people, and driving growth and value creation with KKR portfolio companies. KKR invests its own capital alongside the capital it manages for fund investors and provides financing solutions and investment opportunities through its capital markets business. References to KKR’s investments may include the activities of its sponsored funds. For additional information about KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE: KKR), please visit KKR’s website at www.kkr.com and on Twitter @KKR_Co.

About Ten Eleven Ventures
Ten Eleven Ventures is the original venture capital firm focused solely on investing in digital security. The firm invests globally and at all stages, from seed to growth (the latter via its Joint Investment Alliance with KKR). Since its founding in 2015, Ten Eleven Ventures has raised nearly $500 million US Dollars and invested in 25 leading cybersecurity companies including Twistlock, Verodin, Cylance, KnowBe4, Darktrace, and Ping Identity. For more information, visit: www.1011vc.com and on Twitter @1011vc.

Media Contacts:

ReliaQuest
Francesca DeAnda
Mission North for ReliaQuest
reliaquest@missionnorth.com

KKR
Kristi Huller, Cara Major or Miles Radcliffe-Trenner
212.750.8300
Media@KKR.com

Ten Eleven Ventures
Megan Dubofsky
917.576.5590
mdubofsky@1011vc.com

SOURCE ReliaQuest

Funds advised by Apax Partners to acquire Coalfire from The Carlyle Group and The Chertoff Group

admin December 13, 2019

Investment to help Coalfire accelerate growth across compliance and cybersecurity service offerings

Westminster, Colorado and New York, December 13, 2019: Funds advised by Apax Partners (the “Apax Funds”) today announced they have reached an agreement to acquire Coalfire, a provider of cybersecurity advisory and assessment services, from The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) and The Chertoff Group. The transaction is expected to be completed in early 2020, subject to regulatory approval. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Founded in 2001, Coalfire is a cybersecurity advisor that helps organizations avert threats, close gaps, and effectively manage cyber risk. By providing independent, tailored advice and services that span the cybersecurity lifecycle, Coalfire helps clients develop scalable programs that improve their security posture. The company today has more than 1,800 government and commercial clients and extensive cloud security experience, working with seven of the top ten SaaS providers. Coalfire’s more than 730 employees operate from 11 locations in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The investment from the Apax Funds will support Coalfire in accelerating its growth. Rohan Haldea, Partner at Apax Partners, said: “Coalfire is an established and highly-respected cybersecurity advisory and assessment services firm that is well-positioned for further growth due to cybersecurity trends and the vision of its strong management team. The Apax Funds’ investment will assist the company in particular by increasing Coalfire’s investment in technology; continuing to invest in thought leadership, especially with respect to securing cloud environments; and deepening capabilities across assurance standards while scaling its penetration testing and cyber risk services business.”

Tom McAndrew, Coalfire CEO, said: “We are thrilled with our new partnership with Apax, which will help drive our growth plans while continuing our commitment to our customers, people, and core values. The leadership, support, and investment provided by Carlyle, Chertoff, and Baird Capital have been instrumental in our success over the last four years, and we are excited to begin this new chapter.”

Carlyle Managing Director Steve Bailey said: “It has been a great pleasure working with Tom and his team, along with The Chertoff Group, to support Coalfire’s tremendous growth over the past four years as we leveraged our cybersecurity investing experience. We wish them much continued success.”

Haldea added: “We look forward to working with the Coalfire team as they broaden their services to support customers in navigating an environment that is characterized by an increasing range of cybersecurity challenges.” The Apax Funds have a successful track record of partnering with tech-enabled services businesses, including Engineering, EVRY, Fractal Analytics, GlobalLogic, Lexitas, ThoughtWorks, and Zensar.

William Blair served as financial advisor and Latham & Watkins served as legal advisor to Coalfire. PwC served as accounting advisor to Carlyle. Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel to the Apax Funds.

The Carlyle Group invested in Coalfire in 2015 through its U.S. Equity Opportunity Fund I, a $1.1 billion U.S. middle-market fund.

About Coalfire

Coalfire is the trusted cybersecurity advisor that helps private and public-sector organizations avert threats, close gaps and effectively manage risk. By providing independent and tailored advice, assessments, technical testing, and cyber engineering services, we help clients develop scalable programs that improve their security posture, achieve their business objectives and fuel their continued success. Coalfire has been a cybersecurity thought leader for nearly 20 years and has offices throughout the United States and Europe. For more information, visit www.coalfire.com.

About Apax Partners

Apax Partners is a leading global private equity advisory firm. Over its more than 40-year history, Apax Partners has raised and advised funds with aggregate commitments of c.$50 billion. The Apax Funds invest in companies across four global sectors of Tech & Telco, Services, Healthcare, and Consumer. These funds provide long-term equity financing to build and strengthen world-class companies. For more information see: www.apax.com.

About The Carlyle Group

The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) is a global investment firm with deep industry expertise that deploys private capital across four business segments: Corporate Private Equity, Real Assets, Global Credit, and Investment Solutions. With $222 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2019, Carlyle’s purpose is to invest wisely and create value on behalf of its investors, portfolio companies and the communities in which we live and invest. The Carlyle Group employs more than 1,775 people in 33 offices across six continents.

About The Chertoff Group

The Chertoff Group is a global advisory services firm that invests in and provides consulting, business development and M&A advisory services for clients in the security, defense and government services sectors. The Chertoff Group applies security expertise, technology insights, and policy intelligence to help clients build resilient organizations, gain competitive advantage, and accelerate growth. Through its investment banking subsidiary Chertoff Capital, the firm provides M&A advisory services in global security markets and growth equity investments in cyber and tech-enabled security and defense sector companies. For more information, visit www.chertoffgroup.com

About Baird Capital

Baird Capital makes venture capital, growth equity and private equity investments in strategically targeted sectors around the world. Having invested in more than 300 companies over its history, Baird Capital partners with entrepreneurs and, leveraging its executive networks, strives to build exceptional companies. Baird Capital provides operational support to its portfolio companies through teams on the ground in the United States, Europe and Asia, a proactive portfolio operations team and a deep network of relationships, which together strive to deliver enhanced shareholder value. Baird Capital is the direct private investment arm of Robert W. Baird & Co. For more information, please visit BairdCapital.com.

Media Contacts

For Coalfire

Global Media: Mike Gallo, Lumina Communications | +1 212-239-8594 | luminacoalfire@luminapr.com

UK Media: Bryn Madden, Citypress | +44 161 235 0338 | coalfire@citypress.co.uk

For Apax Partners

Global Media: Andrew Kenny, Apax | +44 20 7 872 6371 | andrew.kenny@apax.com

USA Media: Todd Fogarty, Kekst CNC | +1 212-521-4854 | apax@kekstcnc.com

UK Media: Matthew Goodman / James Madsen, Greenbrook | +44 20 7952 2000 | apax@greenbrookpr.com

For The Carlyle Group

Christa Zipf, The Carlyle Group | +1 212-813-4578 | christa.zipf@carlyle.com

For The Chertoff Group

Global Media: Meagan Hawkins | +1 202-552-5243 | meagan.hawkins@chertoffgroup.com

For Baird Capital

Rachel Kern | +1 414-298-5101 | rkern@rwbaird.com

Notes to Editors

London-headquartered Apax Partners (www.apax.com), and Paris-headquartered Apax Partners (www.apax.fr) had a shared history but are separate, independent private equity firms

Categories: News

Tags: Cybersecurity

Baird Capital Portfolio Company Coalfire Acquired by Apax Partners

admin December 10, 2019

Baird Capital portfolio company Coalfire, a leading provider of cybersecurity advisory and assessment services, has been acquired by Apax Partners (the “Apax Funds”).

Founded in 2001, Coalfire helps clients develop scalable programs that improve their security posture and fuel their continued success by providing independent, tailored advice and services that span the cybersecurity lifecycle. The company today has more than 1,800 government and commercial clients and extensive cloud security experience, working with seven of the top ten SaaS providers. Coalfire’s more than 730 employees operate from 11 locations in the United States and the United Kingdom.

For more information, the full press release is available here.

Categories: News

Tags: Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity firm buguroo raises $11M to build on its success in Europe and Latin America

admin November 26, 2019

The new funding will be used to accelerate development of buguroo’s Deep Learning based online fraud detection and prevention products for new markets worldwide
Three new investors will join the buguroo board: Alex Doll and Paul Ayers from Ten Eleven Ventures and Beatriz Gonzalez from Seaya Ventures

26 November 2019 – Madrid-based cybersecurity firm buguroo has secured $11 million in Series A funding to bring its Deep Learning based online fraud detection and prevention technology, combining behavioral biometrics, malware detection and device assessment, to more financial services customers.

Cybersecurity-focused venture capital firm Ten Eleven Ventures (headquartered in Silicon Valley, California) and Spain- and Latin America- focused venture capital firm Seaya Ventures (headquartered in Madrid, Spain) led the Series A round. Existing investors Inveready Technology Investment Group and Conexo Ventures also participated.

buguroo-serie-a-investment-01

Currently, buguroo technology protects over 50 million financial services customers in Europe and Latin America from login to logout. With the new Series A investment, the company will expand its sales and marketing efforts in these regions as well as in new geographies, with particular focus on the US, UK, France and Germany.

The funding will also be used to accelerate new product developments, including buguroo’s “Fraudster Hunter.” This pioneering functionality, which was recently incorporated into buguroo’s anti-fraud solution, identifies and tracks the behavioral patterns of fraudsters and their collaborators, using Deep Learning to discover victims who are unaware they have been affected by fraud, reveal fraud scenarios and recognize fraudsters’ modus operandi. This unique capability ensures that financial services companies can stay one step ahead of fraudulent digital activity.

From login to logout, buguroo’s technology protects financial services customers from all known fraud use cases, including the increasing problem of synthetic fraud, when hackers set up new accounts using fake identities in the onboarding phase. By collecting thousands of parameters relating to the customer’s behavioral biometrics and environment, including smartphone and mouse movements, keystrokes, device profiling, and geolocation and malware records, buguroo is able to create a unique “cyber profile” for each user – a digital DNA – that stops fraudsters from impersonating financial services customers online and manipulating accounts.

With online banking fraud proliferating, identifying and stopping fraudulent activity without impacting the user experience is crucial for financial institutions worldwide.

“With focused, regional investment in sales and marketing, we have proven the power of our solution. We are thrilled to have the support of our new investors, who are enabling us to continue to bring this best-in-class solution to banks around the globe and accelerate our mission of continuous innovation in online fraud detection”

Pablo de la Riva, Founder and CEO of buguroo.

“Ten Eleven Ventures is pleased to back another exciting new team using artificial intelligence to transform cybersecurity. Pablo and the buguroo team are talented innovators who have found a unique way to use AI to reduce online fraud. We are so impressed with the customer traction they have in Europe and Latin America. We look forward to helping them build a global cybersecurity company.”

Alex Doll, Ten Eleven Ventures Managing Partner.

“We are very excited to have the opportunity to join Pablo and the team in their journey to help any kind of organization prevent digital fraud and become the world’s largest database of fraudster digital identities. We are looking forward to supporting them using our experience with high-growth international businesses.”

Aris Xenofontos from Seaya Ventures.

“We are so impressed with buguroo’s achievements so far. This great performance allowed us to choose among top VCs, and we decided to go with Ten Eleven Ventures, best in cybersecurity. We look forward to keep helping Pablo and buguroo’s team to build a global cybersecurity company.”

Ignacio Fonts, Inveready Managing Partner.

“We are very proud of buguroo’s performance, testimony to the skills, passion and relentless dedication by CEO Pablo de la Riva and his team. We are as well delighted to have Ten Eleven Ventures and Seaya joining in this journey; they are the perfect companions to further expand buguroo’s international success.”

Joaquim Hierro Lopes, Conexo’s Managing Partner.

About buguroo

buguroo was founded in Madrid in 2015 to develop cybersecurity and disruptive anti-fraud solutions, always keeping abreast of the latest market trends. Today, buguroo is the mastermind behind the most comprehensive solution for online fraud prevention known as bugFraud. Thanks to this product, banks across the globe protect their customers in real-time from all the online fraud use cases.
https://www.buguroo.com/

About Ten Eleven Ventures

Ten Eleven Ventures is the original venture capital firm focused solely on investing in digital security. The firm invests globally and at all stages, from seed to growth (the latter via its Joint Investment Alliance with KKR). Since its founding in 2015, Ten Eleven Ventures has raised nearly $500M and invested in nineteen leading cybersecurity companies including Twistlock, Verodin, Cylance, KnowBe4, Darktrace, and Ping Identity.
https://www.1011vc.com

seaya_ventures_logo
About Seaya Ventures

Based in Madrid, Seaya Ventures has been backing the best entrepreneurs and teams from Spain and Latin America since 2013. Seaya focuses on supporting founders in scaling their businesses enabling them to become global leaders. . https://seayaventures.com/

Acerca de Inveready

Inveready is a leading asset manager in Spain investing in early-stage technology-based companies. Inveready invest through 4 verticals Venture Capital in Digital Technology, Venture Capital in Life Sciences, Venture Debt and Hybrid Financing for quoted companies in growth markets) with +€330M of assets under management. With 21 successful exits on their back, some of their portfolio companies are quoted in the IBEX 35, NASDAQ and MAB while others got acquired by companies such as Intel, Symantec and Red Hat. It is part of their DNA to empower disruptive innovators, helping them grow and succeed over the past 11 years. As a consequence of this growth and track record they are proud recipients of several awards such as Best Venture Capital Manager in Spain, Best VC Transaction and Best Venture Debt Transaction.
https://inveready.com/

Acerca de Conexo

is a fund with presence in Madrid, Lisbon, Boston and Silicon Valley that invests in Spanish and Portuguese startups in order to accelerate their growth through internationalization towards LATAM and, particularly, US. We excel at hands-on value creation bringing insight, talent, direct sales and co-investors to our portfolio companies. Conexo is the ventures arm of GED Capital, a leading investment firm with over $900M AUM.
https://conexo.vc/

Categories: News

Tags: Cybersecurity

Providence Strategic Growth Invests in ThreatConnect

admin June 3, 2019

ThreatConnect Receives Investment from Providence Strategic Growth

New Funding Aimed at Accelerating ThreatConnect’s Go-to-Market Strategy and Product Development

ARLINGTON, Va.–June 3, 2019–ThreatConnect, Inc.®, provider of the industry’s only intelligence-driven security operations platform announced a new strategic growth investment led by Providence Strategic Growth (PSG), the growth equity affiliate of Providence Equity Partners. This growth investment is intended to help continue the ThreatConnect Platform’s path of innovation and further the company’s continued leadership in its market.

ThreatConnect originally launched its Platform in 2014, gained market leadership in the threat intelligence platform market, and has since grown to serve more than 1,600 organizations worldwide. In 2017 the company added advanced orchestration and automation capabilities to the Platform, expanding its value to a broader security operations market. In just the last year, the usage of these advanced orchestration and automation “Playbooks” in the Platform has increased more than 40%, now executing more than 23,000 Playbooks per month per customer on average.

In 2018, ThreatConnect was selected by Inc5000 as one of the fastest growing companies in the US, and by Washington Business Journal as one of the DC area’s 75 Fastest Growing Companies. The company’s growth, along with its value proposition to change how businesses manage their security, drove PSG’s interest in investing in the company.

ThreatConnect CEO Adam Vincent said, “PSG’s deep experience investing in technology companies that are reshaping the way business is done make them an ideal partner for ThreatConnect. PSG portfolio companies are helping other businesses run smarter, cheaper, and faster. And, since ThreatConnect is helping companies with smarter, faster decision making in security, this seemed like a very natural fit.”

The new funding is aimed at accelerating ThreatConnect’s go-to-market strategy, supporting further development of the Platform, and expanding its ability to build a successful community of customers and partners. The company plans to increase its staff by more than 50% over the next 12 months both domestically and abroad, which is expected to further accelerate product and revenue growth in the coming years.

PSG Managing Director Gopi Vaddi said, “Our vision for digital transformation of businesses through software aligns well with ThreatConnect’s vision for intelligence-driven security. Security software is one of the priority sectors for PSG, and we are excited to have found a high quality organization in ThreatConnect led by Adam Vincent and his team – a relationship we cultivated for several years. We look forward to working with Adam and the rest of the ThreatConnect leadership team to accelerate what is already a successful and fast growing organization.”

PSG is ThreatConnect’s sole institutional investor.

About ThreatConnect
ThreatConnect, Inc. provides a proactive and efficient approach to security by enabling enhanced detection, shortened response, and reduced risk. Designed by analysts but built for the entire team (security operations, threat intelligence, incident response and security leadership), ThreatConnect’s intelligence-driven security operations platform is the only solution available today with intelligence, automation, analytics, and workflows in a single platform. To learn more about our threat intelligence platform (TIP) or security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) solutions, visit www.ThreatConnect.com.

About Providence Strategic Growth Capital Partners LLC
Providence Strategic Growth (“PSG”) is an affiliate of Providence Equity Partners (“Providence”). Established in 2014, PSG focuses on growth equity investments in lower middle market software and technology-enabled service companies, primarily in North America. Providence is a premier global asset management firm that pioneered a sector-focused approach to private equity investing with the vision that a dedicated team of industry experts could build exceptional companies of enduring value. Since the firm’s inception in 1989, Providence has invested in more than 180 companies and is a leading equity investment firm focused on the media, communications, education and information industries. Providence is headquartered in Providence, RI, and also has offices in New York and London. For more information on PSG, please visit https://www.provequity.com/private-equity/psg, and for more information on Providence, please visit https://www.provequity.com.

Contacts

ThreatConnect
US
Hayley Kropog
Hayley.Kropog@teamlewis.com

UK
Claire Sach
claire.sach@teamlewis.com

Providence Strategic Growth
Kelsey Markovich / Hayley Cook
Prov-SVC@sardverb.com
212-687-8080

Categories: News

Tags: Cybersecurity Information technology

KPN Ventures leads investment in cyber security startup ZecOps

admin July 31, 2018

ROTTERDAM, July 31, 2018 – Dutch corporate investment fund KPN Ventures announced today it has participated as lead investor in the $3.5m seed round of ZecOps, a cyber security startup based in San Francisco and Tel Aviv, focusing on automated threat analysis.

ZecOps seed round is supplemented by an investment from Evolution Equity Partners, a fund that specializes in cybersecurity, Plug and Play Silicon Valley, WISE Ventures, Array Ventures, and respected angel investors.

ZecOps was started in July 2017 by Zuk Avraham together with his wife & co-founder, Taly Slachevsky. ZecOps is Avraham’s second entrepreneurial journey. He founded his first company, Zimperium, in 2010, where he currently serves as its Chairman of the Board. Zimperium is the leading mobile threat defense solution on the market.

ZecOps products gained high traction during its first year, while still in stealth-mode, with well-known customers from the technology, finance and telecom segments. ZecOps is working with law enforcement agencies, banks, critical infrastructure, tech, payment solutions and telcos to solve major pain points in cyber security.

“Through KPN’s cooperation with Zimperium, We have got to know Zuk as a clear thought leader in cyber security” said Herman Kienhuis, EVP and Managing Director at KPN Ventures.“With ZecOps, he is taking on a new challenge: automating security breach analysis; we see great potential in enabling more companies to learn from attacks, generate new threat intelligence and substantially improve their security.”

Michal Pechoucek, Partner at Evolution Equity Partners, adds: “Increased efficiencies gained from automation in security operations is an important area in cybersecurity where Zecops have developed cutting edge technology. We believe the attributes of the Zecops technology are unique and provide the company with a cutting-edge advantage in the global marketplace. We welcome Zecops and its team of seasoned cybersecurity professionals to our portfolio.”

“We are extremely excited to welcome ZecOps into our family. Out of the hundreds of cybersecurity startups we analyzed this year, ZecOps stood out as one of the most exciting,” says George Damouny, Partner at Plug and Play Ventures. “With their strong team and expertise in the cybersecurity space, we have high expectations for ZecOps as they continue to revolutionize the Security Operations market.”

Following this seed round investment, ZecOps will launch its products for general availability to help organizations hunt down attackers’ mistakes effectively.

“We were surprised with the overwhelming demand for our products. It can be exceedingly difficult to innovate in a crowded market like the cyber security space – but we were able to do it effectively. Consequently, the reactions from CISOs around the globe made our efforts worthwhile,” said Mr. Avraham. “In the last year, we detected multiple APTs for a variety of businesses, a rare achievement especially for a one year old company”.

About ZecOps, Inc.
ZecOps is a stealth mode cybersecurity automation company headquartered in San Francisco, California with R&D based in Tel Aviv, Israel. ZecOps learns from attackers’ mistakes with the goal of discovering the course of action and objectives of entire campaign, burn the threat actors exploits & persistence mechanisms and increase the attacker’s campaign costs for targeting a ZecOps protected company. To contact ZecOps, visit https://www.zecops.com. For press inquiries: mail ZecOps PR at media@zecops.com

Categories: News

Tags: Cybersecurity Information technology Venture Capital

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Tag Archives: Cybersecurity

Francisco Partners to Acquire Forcepoint from Raytheon Technologies

Francisco Partners to Acquire Forcepoint from Raytheon Technologies

ReliaQuest Raises Over $300 Million in Growth Financing Led by KKR

Related Links

Funds advised by Apax Partners to acquire Coalfire from The Carlyle Group and The Chertoff Group

Baird Capital Portfolio Company Coalfire Acquired by Apax Partners

Cybersecurity firm buguroo raises $11M to build on its success in Europe and Latin America

Providence Strategic Growth Invests in ThreatConnect

KPN Ventures leads investment in cyber security startup ZecOps