Israeli start up Skybox Security raised $2 million in round C, reports Calcalist. All of the company’s existing investors participated in the round, including: Benchmark Capital (Arad Naveh), Carmel Ventures, Glynn Capital Management (John Glynn), Gold Hill Capital Management, Lightspeed Venture Partners (John Luongo, Ravi Mhatre), Mofet Technology Fund Management, Rembrandt Venture Partners (Richard Ling) and Valley Venture Capital.
Skybox Security was founded in 2002 by Eran Reshef and Gidi Cohen and was formerly known as Seclucid. The company provides automated risk and compliance management software solutions for organizations and government agencies offering a line of products based on its propietary platform (Skybox View). Skybox’s product offering includes:
- a Firewall Compliance Auditor that collects information from multiple firewalls and analyzes configuration compliance with industry practices or custom policies
- Network Compliance Auditor that collects network and security device configurations and develops a network model.
- Risk Exposure Analyzer, which quantifies risk exposure and prioritizes vulnerabilities taking into account business logic, network and security device configuration, threats, and vulnerability data
- Simulate Attack Scenarios and use the information to modify those areas that are most vulnerable to a security breach.
The company is headquartered in San Jose, California with a sales office in the United Kingdom. It has a research and development facility in Israel which employs around 50 people.
Skybox has around 150 customers in 20 countries including Credit Suisse, Barclays, Teva, Best Buy and more. It is said to be close to break even according to sources close to the company.
VC Cafe’s take: Skybox seems to be an impressive enterprise security toolbox with lots of useful features. That said, companies that have been around for less time have shown profitability much quicker, which makes me wonder if the problem is with the product or with sales. On a positive note, the market is growing rapidly and this round of capital may provide the necessary lifeline for growth. One to watch in 2010.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
