Israeli start-up Imperva announced yesterday that it closed a fourth financing round, raising $17 million. The company raised $33.7 million in its earlier financing rounds. The latest round was led venture capital firm Greylock Partners, and the company’s existing investors, Accel Partners, US Venture Partners, and Venrock Associates.
Imperva was founded in 2002 by president Shlomo Kramer, a co-founder of Check Point (Nasdaq: CHKP). Imperva has developed a device for preventing unauthorized use of knowledge by an enterprise’s employees. It is targeted primarily for web-based enterprises and commerce sites. The device protects the enterprise’s applications layer and analyses their activities, such as updates to data bases by external entities. The analysis attempts to locate attempted break-ins and unauthorized changes. Imperva’s product range offers methods for identifying unauthorized access to applications, rather than computers and servers, which can be identified according to their URL address.
Imperva is headquartered in Ramat Gan, and has a sales and marketing office in the US. The proceeds from the financing round will be used to expand direct and channel sales infrastructure on a global basis to capitalize on the rapidly expanding market opportunity for its data security, data assurance, and regulatory compliance products.
Kramer said, “Demand for data security, data assurance, and regulatory compliance products is growing faster than anyone anticipated as organizations worldwide come to terms with the financial, legal, and business responsibilities for sensitive customer information and financial data. This new round of funding provides us with the financial resources we need to capture a lion’s share of the market for data security products both domestically and internationally.”
Greylock Partners partner Asheem Chandna said, “Data security has rapidly become a top customer priority. We are excited to be working with Shlomo Kramer and the Imperva team to help build and grow Imperva as the worldwide leader in the new data security category.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on May 18, 2006
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