As hacking attacks mount, the major Wall Street firm takes a stake in Iboss.
With the recent series of high-profile hacking incidents, more and more companies are taking a harder look at their cybersecurity measures. Now one California-based cybersecurity firm has received a new round of funding, and hopes to capture the growing market for online privacy protections.
Twin brothers Peter and Paul Martini founded the security firm Iboss, and now at its 10-year anniversary, the company has received a $35 million influx from the mammoth Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs, according to Business Insider.
The funding is the company’s first venture capital infusion, although Iboss has received previous offers which the brothers turned down. Partnering with Goldman Sachs is different, though, because the bank’s global reach can help Iboss take its business to companies around the world.
The company expects to use the funding to support the launch of its Secure Web Gateway Platform, a direct-to-cloud security system. Iboss also hopes the funding will help the company in developing new security technologies.
Goldman will become a minority shareholder in Iboss, which is valued at more than $500 million, and will take a seat on the company’s Board.
Iboss was launched in 2005 and put its first product out at the height of the financial crisis. But the brothers say that the troubled economic environment gave them discipline as a startup business. The company has no debt and has been profitable from its earliest days.
The company’s technology monitors a company’s computer network and looks for suspicious activity to detect and ward off hackers. Recent hacking attacks on companies such as Target, Home Depot, and other corporations have raised concerns about the lack of sophistication in many companies’ security measures.
The brothers’ parents are Cuban immigrants. Their father ran an auto mechanic business in Los Angeles, where they learned to play with cars’ computers and picked up a love of technology from an early age.