E-mail security software provider Proofpoint Inc., which raised $28 million in a late-stage
round in February led by DAG Ventures, has moved ahead with plans discussed at the time to goose organic growth with additional strategic moves, and acquired Toronto-based e-maill archiving software maker Fortiva Inc. in a deal expected to be announced today.
Terms of the deal were not announced, and Proofpoint chief financial officer Paul Auvil would not say whether Fortiva's backers Cargill Ventures Ventures West Management Inc. and McLean Watson Capital will join DAG, Benchmark Capital, Bridgescale Partners and Mohr, Davidow Ventures, Inventures Group, Meritech Capital Partners and Jafco Ventures as shareholders in the company going forward, but he says thedeal will not have a significant effect on Proofpoint's balance sheet. Proofpoint has raised a total of $86 million in three rounds, while Fortiva raised $8 million in a Series A round in September 2005.
Auvil said the acquisition adds a key third component to Proofpoint's products which govern security issues incoming incoming and outgoing e-mail, by providing crucial archiving capabilities for stored mail. The company will continue to sell Fortiva products in stand-alone form, and Auvil said about one-third of proofpoint's 1,800 customers have already expressed interest in adding the products, and he said the company will also explore integration possibilities fro future Proofpoint releases.
"There is no need for any integration at all for our customers to get the benefits of the Fortiva products, but we will explore the best integration possibilities," Auvil says. "This fits in as a third piece to customers in archiving the mail we handle, both for regulatory compliance and ease of deployment."
While Proofpoint's products handle all aspects of incoming and outgoing mail to deal with security and data leakage, Fortiva helps meet regulatory demands for e-mail retention, and also improves IT management and storage efficiency by taking files off the e-mail server and removing to a storage network. Archiving e-mails off the server is invisible to the user, but can dramaticaaly cut headaches for IT managers, Auvil said.
-- Clifford Carlsen
See Feb. 27 story from Tech Confidential
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