On The Heels Of Nabbing 7 HP Execs, Cyber Security Startup AlienVault Raises $8 Million

Two weeks ago, we covered a fast-growing security startup called AlienVault, which had just stolen seven senior HP security executives. At the time, Barmak Meftah, who left HP Fortify to become president and chief executive at AlienVault told us that the allure was the startup’s technology, which he said is “one of the more widely-deployed Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) on the market.”
With the number of cyber attacks and high profile hacks that took place over the last year, both government organizations and corporations are making security a priority and realizing that it’s an issue that needs to be addressed from the top down, and SIEM, he said, is one of the fastest growing segments within the security market.
The startup and its flagship product, OSSIM, an open source SIEM solution, are focused on providing unified management of critical security systems and processes across the network, like vulnerability scanning, etc., and have attracted customers like the Telefonica, Metro Madrid and the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company.
On top of its raid of HP Fortify and HP enterprise security execs, AlienVault is today announcing that it has closed an $8 million series B financing round, led by Trident Capital. Existing investors, Adara Venture Partners and Neotec both contributed to the round, bringing the startup’s total funding to over $12 million.
As part of the series B round, Trident managing director J. Alberto Yepez and Trident principal Michael Biggee will be joining the startup’s board of directors. The team said that it will be using its new infusion of capital to expand its sales and marketing initiatives and expand research and development to meet the growing demand for unified security management.
Trident Capital has funded a number of successful cyber security companies, including Sygate, which was acquired by Symantec, Tablus, acquired by EMC, Thor Technologies, which was acquired by Oracle, and Tricipher, acquired by VMWare.
The Trident team helped recruit AlienVault’s new HP executive team, and is clearly banking on the fact that this new capital can help AlienVault position itself as a player in the global market, where cost-effective, unified management approaches to security are in demand. According to global investment banking and asset management firm William Blair & Co., the SIEM market is growing at 21.9 percent CAGR and is on track to surpass $2.3 Billion by 2014.
For more, check out AlienVault at home here.
Source:http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/31/on-the-heels-of-nabbing-7-hp-execs-cyber-security-startup-alienvault-raises-8-million/