Start-up Guardium, which develops database security software, today announced that it raised $4 million in its first funding round.
The round was led by Cedar Fund, jointly with Veritas Venture Partners and Stage One Ventures.
Guardium CEO Amnon Keynan said the investment would provide the company with the capital necessary to fuel its growth and widen its presence.
Guardium, which is based in Massachusetts, was founded in 2002 by Log-On Software, an Israel-based IT solution provider. The firm is developing a software-based security solution that is designed to allow companies to safely extend their database applications to workers offsite, as well as to clients and partners connected via the Internet. The solution is based on a core technology developed in Israel.
Guardium says its management team brings extensive technology and management experience from several successful publicly traded companies. CEO and founder Amnon Keynan was formerly a VP at Amdocs (NYSE: DOX); COO and VP R&D Memy Ish-Shalom is also a former Amdocs VP, as well as being the former COO of ViryaNet (Nasdaq: VRYA); and CTO Dr. Ron Ben-Natan held an equivalent position at ViryaNet before joining Guardium. Ben-Natan also held various positions at Intel, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Merrill Lynch and J.P. Morgan, the company said.
Cedar Fund specializes in early stage, Israel-related companies. With over $225 million under management, Cedar Fund is among the largest venture capital firms focusing on Israel-related, early stage investments.
Cedar Fund partner Amnon Shoham said, "We are delighted to continue to lead investments in outstanding early stage companies, such as Guardium, where we see substantial market potential met with a unique solution and technology approach and led by an experienced management team."
Herzliya-based Veritas Venture Partners focuses on opportunities in Israel and in the South East US. Since 1990, Veritas has led early stage investments in Gilat Satellite Networks, ESC Medical Systems (now Lumenis), M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers and Accord Networks, all of which are now Nasdaq-listed.
Veritas Venture Partners partner Gill Zaphrir commented, "The pervasiveness of illegal access into corporate databases from both external and internal sources makes the deployment of such a security offer high priority for corporate IT / Security managers. Veritas strongly believes that Guardium's management and technology answer this growing need for the enterprise data security world. We expect a noticeable growth in this segment, supported by corporate and government demand."
StageOne Ventures is a seed venture capital fund specializing in investments in the information communications technology sectors. Primary investors in the fund are Bezeq and Discount Capital Markets, a fully owned subsidiary of Discount Bank.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on 14 January, 2003