Cloudmark® Secures $23 Million In Growth Equity Funding From Summit Partners And Nokia Growth Partners
Messaging Security Leader Closes Funding to Acquire Acclaimed Message Processor Company
San Francisco, Calif., and Boston, Mass.—March 3, 2010—Cloudmark, Inc., the global leader in carrier-grade messaging security, today announced it has secured $23 million in a round of funding led by new investor Summit Partners and joined by Nokia Growth Partners, the venture capital investing arm of Nokia (NYSE: NOK), the world’s leading mobile phone supplier. Existing investors Ignition Partners and Industry Ventures also participated in the round. The new funding was used to assist in Cloudmark’s acquisition of Bizanga, Ltd. and is the first investment Cloudmark has raised since 2004.
“Today’s carriers must deploy the best defenses against emerging and sophisticated messaging threats,” said Hugh McCartney, chief executive officer, Cloudmark. “Our goal is to leverage the recently acquired messaging platform and Cloudmark’s proven world-class messaging security technology to provide the industry’s most powerful, unified messaging security solution for operators. We are delighted to have raised new capital from both Summit Partners and Nokia Growth Partners, and their support and global experience will help guide Cloudmark as we continue our growth into new and existing markets.”
Cloudmark’s carrier-grade software solution delivers the industry’s fastest and most accurate spam, phishing and virus protection. Through its unique combination of Advanced Message Fingerprinting™ technology, real-time corroborated feedback from Cloudmark’s Global Threat Network™ system, automated, anonymous traffic analysis and dedicated security analysts, Cloudmark detects messaging abuse with up to 99 percent accuracy and near-zero false positives.
“We are very pleased to lead this investment in Cloudmark to help support the expansion of the industry’s leading messaging security solution for high-performance networks,” said Greg Goldfarb, a principal with Summit Partners, who will join the Cloudmark Board of Directors. “At Summit Partners, we have been investing for 25 years in profitable, innovative leaders in the security software industry and it is always rare to find a company that is both a technology leader and service leader. The volume of messaging abuse and security threats continues to skyrocket across wired and wireless networks. Cloudmark’s technology increases the performance, reliability and security of its customers’ messaging infrastructure, while decreasing management costs, and Cloudmark’s service and responsiveness allows its customers to sleep well at night.”
“The need for carriers to protect their mobile networks against messaging attacks has never been more critical, and it is essential for ensuring a positive experience for their customers,” said John Gardner, managing partner at Nokia Growth Partners. “Cloudmark is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this demand based on its ability to deliver carrier-grade messaging security solutions with unrivaled accuracy, scalability and performance. Nokia Growth Partners invests in best-of-breed mobile services and technology companies with significant potential for future growth and industry leadership. Cloudmark fulfills that profile, and is in an excellent position to enable mobile communications service providers to reduce the complexity within their networks, grow their customer base and maximize revenues.”
About Summit Partners
Summit Partners is a growth equity investor that provides private equity and venture capital to rapidly growing companies. Founded in 1984, Summit has raised more than $11 billion in capital and has provided growth equity, recapitalization and management buyout financing to more than 300 growing companies across a range of industries and geographies. Summit Partners seeks outstanding management teams that have built their companies to profitability and market leadership. Notable investments in the security market include, McAfee (NYSE: MFE), Postini (acquired by Google, NASDAQ: GOOG), SafeBoot (acquired by McAfee), and Sybari Software (acquired by Microsoft, NASDAQ: MSFT). Summit Partners has offices in Boston, Palo Alto and London. For more information, visit www.summitpartners.com.
About Nokia Growth Partners
Nokia Growth Partners is a global investor for growth stage companies in the mobile industry. With $350M under management, Nokia Growth Partners invests in companies and entrepreneurs that are changing the global face of mobility, communications and the Internet. Nokia Growth Partners also works closely with Nokia to provide a superior return on investment while increasing the likelihood and magnitude of success in the companies in which it invests. Nokia Growth Partners has offices in Menlo Park California; Helsinki Finland; Gurgaon India and Beijing China. See www.nokiagrowthpartners.com for more information.
About Cloudmark
Cloudmark protects 2 billion global subscribers daily from an explosion in messaging abuses across more operator networks than anyone else. Only Cloudmark defends the world’s largest Mobile, Fixed and Social Media Providers, including AT&T, Comcast, MySpace, NTT, Swisscom and Time Warner Cable, with scalable and accurate protection against the widest range of existing and emerging messaging threats.