Seculert Ltd. has announced its second financing round exactly one year after its previous round. Sequoia Capital, a new investor, led the $10 million round, alongside Norwest Venture Partners, which invested in the previous round. The company has raised $16 million to date, mostly from YL Ventures, which did not participate in the current round.
Seculert was founded in 2010 by CEO Dudi Matot, CTO Aviv Raff, and COO Alex Milstein. It develops a security service which seeks to deal with the rapid innovations in viruses which are not updated in real time by standard anti-virus software. The company targets what it calls "advanced persistent threats" (APTs), which in practical terms are sophisticated Trojan horses implanted in computer systems by "establishment" hostile parties, such as foreign countries and terrorist and criminal organizations.
"The current concern about cyber threats helped fundraising," Matot told "Globes". "The security problem is real. Traditional security products from the 1990s, which Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP) led 20 years ago, no longer meet today's threats and there is also a market waiting for solutions because organizations realize that anti-virus no longer does the job."
In the past year, APT has become the leading solution for information security and the contemporary application against cyber threats. Seculert uses the cloud, crowdsourcing, and big data analytics to identify malware and new hacking, or changes in the activity patterns of existing viruses. The solution is installed at an a server farm away from the enterprise, where it tackles threats that are inserted into information systems for the long term, and which are not felt immediately, and not only protects against the initial damage from malware.
Sequoia and Norwest are involved in the world's top two security start-ups MobileIron Inc. and FireEye Inc., both from California. Matot says that their investment in Seculert demonstrates its potential. "The funds identified Seculert and the possibility of creating a big company that will go far," says Matot.
Sequoia Capital partner Gili Raanan joined Seculert’s board of directors, following the investment, where he will serve along with NVP partner Dror Nahumi of NVP, YL Ventures' Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf, and industry veteran Benny Schnaider.
"With our seed investment in 2010, Seculert established itself as a leader in cloud-based threat protection. In the current round, the company will keep and develop its status," Leitersdorf told "Globes".
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 8, 2013
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