Archive for the ‘Investment’ Category

Solera Networks™ Closes $15M Series C Financing; Trident Capital Leads Investment

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Capital Propels Growth of Real-Time Network Forensics Business, Backed By Seasoned Security Investors

Las Vegas, NV (Black Hat 2010) — July 27, 2010 - Solera Networks, a leader in real-time network forensics and network monitoring, announced today that it has closed $15 million in Series C financing. New investor Trident Capital leads the round, joined by existing investors Allegis Capital and Canopy Ventures. Trident managing director J. Alberto Yépez will join Solera Networks’ Board of Directors. Solera Networks will use the capital to expand sales and marketing activities, accelerate product development, and fuel the company’s next stage of growth.

“It is Solera Networks’ mission to be the definitive leader in real-time network forensics and situational awareness,” said Steve Shillingford, president and CEO of Solera Networks. “Enterprise and government CISOs recognize that today’s cyber security threats require a new kind of defense — a full record of network traffic, instantly accessible and searchable. Trident Capital saw the opportunity to extend our leadership position, making this technology ubiquitous in the defense of critical infrastructures.”

Trident Capital has a strong track record of investing in and building successful security companies including AirTight Networks, Arxan, HyTrust, Neohapsis, Qualys, Sygate (acquired by Symantec – NASDAQ: SYMC), Tablus (acquired by EMC – NYSE: EMC), Thor Technologies (acquired by Oracle – NASDAQ: ORCL), Tricipher, and Voltage Security. Red Herring ranked Trident No. 26 out of 1,800 global venture firms. “Trident applies a sector-focused and thesis-driven security investment approach that focuses on pressing customer priorities, emerging security threats and regulatory compliance requirements,” said J. Alberto Yépez, Trident Capital managing director. “We are very impressed with Solera Networks’ proven management team, superior products, partner ecosystem and outstanding references from sophisticated customers in the intelligence community and commercial markets. Trident is delighted to partner with Solera Networks to establish the next generation network security platform.”

Solera Networks’ family of appliances capture, store, and index network traffic for a period of days, weeks, or longer, and have proven to be the highest performance appliances on the market. The Solera DeepSee™ suite of applications, included with each appliance, harnesses stored data to provide real-time and historical visibility to threats by reconstructing and visualizing events in full fidelity. Technology patented by Solera Networks is proving to be a critical defense against advanced threats targeting government and enterprise computer systems.

By developing cutting edge products and delivering on quality and performance, Solera Networks has attracted a strong group of partners and advocates for the advancement of network forensics. “Just like in the physical world, you need security cameras to have good security. Network forensics cuts the time to respond to an incident dramatically so that significant losses can be avoided,” said Kevin Mandia, president and CEO of Mandiant, and author of Incident Response and Computer Forensics. “We now recommend real-time network forensics to all of our clients as part of a strong security posture. The team at Solera Networks has built a great product that scales and performs beautifully. This is a product that everyone needs on their network.”

About Trident Capital

Trident Capital is one of the world’s leading venture capital and private equity firm with more than $1.8 billion of capital under management, including the recently closed Trident Capital Fund VII. The firm focuses on investments in Software and Information Technology-Enabled Services, Healthcare IT, Internet and CleanTech. Trident invests across multiple stages, including early and late stage venture capital as well as growth equity and buyouts. The firm has made over 160 investments since inception in 1993. Trident has investment offices in Palo Alto, CA and Westport, CT. For more information on Trident Capital, visit http://www.tridentcap.com.

Posted in Forensics, Investment, Network Forensics, News, Solera | No Comments »

$7M in New Funding to Grow Network Forensics Business

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Solera Networks™ Secures $7M in New Funding to Grow Network Forensics Business, Allegis Capital Leads Round and Joins Board

New funding validates company’s objective of providing the missing link to a complete information assurance strategy.

LINDON, UT – April 15, 2009 – Solera Networks, a provider of innovative network forensics software solutions, today announced it has raised an additional $7 million in Series B venture funding, led by new investor Allegis Capital. Solera Networks’ existing investor, Canopy Ventures, is also participating in the round.

Proceeds from the funding will be used to accelerate growth in sales and marketing activities, including opening the company’s new office in Washington, DC and expansion of its Japanese operations.

Solera Networks president and CEO, Steve Shillingford said, “We’ve always believed that today’s information assurance strategies are missing a fundamental component – the ability to go back in time to quickly find the source of a breach, remediate the failure, and fortify the network. We see this funding as validation for the need to shift toward planning for these inevitable failures by investing in network forensics solutions like those from Solera Networks.”

Solera Networks has made significant advancements in high-speed network forensics solutions for both virtual and physical networks, including technology to capture, index, search, and replay all network traffic. The company’s solutions are unmatched in speed and scalability and have been previously demonstrated at Supercomputing ‘08 in a real-world testing lab involving live network traffic. Additionally, Solera Networks has certified its performance with Meircom and in numerous live customer deployments.

“We can expect to see more aggressive attacks targeting vulnerabilities that have been recently classified, but for which a remedy is still under development,” said Nick Selby, Vice President and Research Director of the Enterprise Security Practice at industry analyst firm The 451 Group. “Network forensics technologies, like those from Solera Networks, can replay past network events in full fidelity and help identify the scope of the exploit. Swift identification leads to protection against further exposure.” Solera Networks will showcase its latest solution at RSA in San Francisco, April 20-23.

“We are very pleased to join Allegis Capital in this second round of financing for Solera Networks,” said Ron Heinz, Managing Director of Canopy Ventures. “Solera Networks has combined a strong management team with excellent technology in the exciting growth market of network forensics. We believe their opportunity to serve customers in global markets is very compelling.”
“Despite best efforts to protect information assets, there will always be instances where predetermination and prevention isn’t possible,” said Spencer Tall, managing director of Allegis Capital. “Organizations must shift their focus to incident response, supported by comprehensive network forensics. Determining the scope of an event is key, followed by remediation and fortification. This is where Solera Networks’ open architecture, support for any network, and easy-to-use forensic applications fill the gap in today’s network security platforms. It’s a very exciting market opportunity.”

Spencer Tall and Robert Ackerman, managing director and Co-Founder from Allegis Capital, will join the Solera Networks Board of Directors.

Solera Networks’ growing customer base includes small businesses up to global 2000 enterprise and government entities.

About Allegis Capital
Allegis is a seed and early stage venture capital firm focused on the digital economy. The venture firm has five funds and invested in more than 70 companies including Ironport Systems, RIBBIT, LGC Wireless, SandPiper – Digital Island, Rent.com, Shopzilla, Comparnet and StepUp Commerce. Based in Palo Alto, California, Allegis has assets under management of $500M. For more information, visit www.allegiscapital.com.

Posted in Forensics, Investment, Solera | Comments Off

Canopy Invests $3.9M

Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

Network Forensics Leader Poised for New Growth with Venture Fund Support

Canopy Ventures announced today that it has made a $3.9 million Series B Preferred Stock investment in Solera Networks of Lindon, Utah. This is the first investment led by Canopy Ventures’ new management team, and the first investment outside of Canopy’s current portfolio in two years.

Solera Networks provides network monitoring solutions that collect and store massive amounts of network data for mission-critical performance analysis and forensics. With storage of up to 128 terabytes, Solera’s network appliances can store several weeks’ worth of detailed information about every packet transmitted in, out or across a large, high-speed network. The company markets its products primarily to the Network Management and Network Security Markets.

“We are very pleased to have partnered with Solera Networks,” said Ron Heinz, Managing Director of Canopy Ventures. “They have produced innovative technology in an extremely attractive market, and are poised for significant growth. This infusion of capital will allow Solera to accelerate product awareness and enhance an already compelling product line.”

“I have been fortunate to enjoy a longstanding relationship with Canopy,” said Bryan Sparks, President and Chairman of Solera Networks. “When Ron and I began our discussions, we felt this was a perfect fit. We have developed a superb product and proven it with some highly sophisticated customers, and now is the time to start growing sales more rapidly. Canopy’s investment will help make that happen.”

Canopy Ventures has played a key role in the development of major technology success stories including Altiris, MyFamily.com and Helius. Last month, Canopy announced the acquisition of MaxStream, one of its portfolio companies, by Digi International in a $38.5 million transaction.

Solera Networks is currently headquartered in Lindon, Utah, and plans to expand its management and engineering teams in Utah.

ABOUT CANOPY VENTURES

Canopy Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm targeting information technology companies in the western United States. Its primary areas of focus include enterprise software, IP video technologies, networking and communications, security software, WI-FI broadcasting, IT hosting and software as a service. Its offices are in Lindon, Utah. More information may be found at www.canopy.com

Posted in In The News, Investment, Solera | No Comments »