Israeli start-up Riverhead Networks (formerly WanWall) has secured $9 million in a second round of financing that was led by California-based venture capital fund Sequoia Capital. The company valuation was not disclosed.
All of Riverhead’s existing investors participated in the round, including Gemini Israel Funds (who led the seed round), Intel Capital and Koor Corporate Venture Capital. The company also received funding from Professor Leonard Kleinrock, an investor in Internet technologies, and from other private investors.
Riverhead Networks was founded in December 2000 by Professor Yehuda Afek, Dr. Dan Touitou, Anat Bremler Bar, and Yuval Rachmilevitz, to help service providers and carriers address the issue of protecting their networks from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
DDoS attacks present security threats for any business relying on online service and accessibility. Under a DDoS attack, pre-installed daemons are used to create extreme overload conditions on a victim’s bandwidth or processing capabilities thus denying regular service to legitimate users.
Popular among hackers for several years, the problem has recently intensified with the proliferation of cyber terrorism, cyber protests, and automatic and easily accessible attack tools. It is estimated that there are currently over 4,000 DDoS attacks per week, affecting not only Web sites, but also the routers on the network infrastructure itself.
Riverhead says its solution uses a series of complex algorithms to alert and prevent DDoS attacks, allowing uninterrupted operations, even in the midst of an unauthorized or malicious assault. Its ability to assure free flow of legitimate traffic during attacks at any level of the network makes Riverhead’s offering suitable for ISPs and data centers operators.
Riverhead CEO Yuval Rachmilevitz said, “We are thrilled to have secured this second round of financing at what is a difficult time for venture capital funding. The funding from our investors and the strategic relationships with our partners will be of great importance in helping us boost marketing and sales activities.”
Sequoia Capital partner Shmil Levy said, “Riverhead’s unique technology presents a new approach to solve an existing and urgent need of service providers. Their strong management team and early traction with key prospects places Riverhead in a perfect position to become the market leader for the DDoS security systems.”
Riverhead’s international headquarters are located in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on 13 May, 2002