SOURCE: Cenzic

July 11, 2005 09:00 ET

Cenzic Completes a Strong $15 Million in Series C Funding

Leading Application Security Company Addresses Enterprise Vulnerabilities With Stateful Assessment Technology

SANTA CLARA, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- July 11, 2005 -- Cenzic, Inc. today announced the completion of $15 million in Series C funding. Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV), a bi-coastal venture capital firm, led the round, with the current investors Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, JK&B Capital, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and Symantec also participating. Cenzic will use the new capital for additional product development, to accelerate sales and marketing activities, and expand market share.

Securing data and applications is one of the most pressing information technology challenges today for large companies that conduct mission-critical business on the Web. Attacks made through common hacking techniques can lead to financial loss, compliance headaches, disastrous issues with customer privacy and overall satisfaction, and a public relations nightmare. As a result, CISOs, information security managers and directors are faced with the enormous responsibility of keeping Web applications secure from a range of security threats. Hailstorm®, Cenzic's flagship product offering, addresses these problems by automating the process of application security assessment, requiring a fraction of the time and resources associated with manual testing and producing far superior results than first generation products. As the industry's first solution designed to emulate the way a real hacker works, Hailstorm, with its Stateful Assessment™ methodology, enables security experts, QA professionals and developers to work together to secure applications through the software development lifecycle.

Cenzic's newest offering, ClickToSecure™, is a managed service that helps customers remotely assess their applications by combining the power of an enterprise-class application security assessment product with the flexibility of a managed security service. ClickToSecure enables customers to minimize the risk of running critical business applications via the Web by testing for emerging application threats without requiring in-house experts to deploy software. This combination of Cenzic's leading automated assessment technology and professional services expertise provides highly accurate and cost-effective application security analysis.

"Cenzic squarely addresses the growing need to protect Web applications from devastating hacker intrusions that put businesses and customer trust at risk, especially for large financial institutions, credit card companies, healthcare, government agencies, and e-commerce retailers," said Steve Baloff, general partner at ATV. "We look forward to working closely with the Cenzic team as they continue bringing value to enterprises and further positioning themselves as a leader in this critical market segment."

"Cenzic's stateful assessment approach tests Web applications not only for common vulnerabilities, but also for application logic and compliance with internal security policies and regulatory requirements," said John Weinschenk, Cenzic's president and CEO. "The recent introduction of ClickToSecure takes stateful assessment to the next level, delivering significant advancements in speed, ease-of-use and flexibility and minimizing the business impact of application security initiatives. In conjunction with the newly enhanced features of Hailstorm, these new offerings serve as a testament to our evolving commitment to staying atop the most critical and time-sensitive security threats out there. This investment recognizes that application security must be tackled head on and validates our competitive edge moving forward."

About Advanced Technology Ventures

Founded in 1979, Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV) is a bi-coastal venture capital firm with more than $1.4 billion in capital under management. ATV works closely with entrepreneurial teams in several technology markets, including communications, IT infrastructure, software and services, and healthcare technologies, to build emerging-growth business ventures into market leaders. With more than 25 years of experience, ATV has a proven track record of success in helping to build strong, sustainable business enterprises. For more information, please visit ATV's Web site at www.atvcapital.com.

About Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

In 1989, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners was created as the first venture capital firm focused exclusively on software. As the software industry has grown from PC software to enterprise computing to Internet applications, Hummer Winblad has been at the forefront -- funding the entrepreneurs and ideas that helped define these markets. The partners believe that innovative software will increasingly be the core driver of competitive advantage within companies, will underlie valuable services to consumers and corporations, and will change the economics of entire industries. The firm's goal is to provide the capital, experience and vision that will help its companies become leaders in this new software economy. For more information on Hummer Winblad, visit www.humwin.com.

About JK&B Capital

JK&B Capital is a $900 million venture capital firm based in Chicago. JK&B was founded in 1996 with the belief that in addition to capital and financial savvy, successful venture investing requires unique relationships and in-depth industry and technical expertise in order to identify the most attractive investment opportunities and consistently add value to portfolio companies. JK&B portfolio companies include: Exodus Communications, Openwave (Phone.com), Commerce One, Interwoven, CoreTek, Selectica and SilverStream. Information about JK&B Capital is available on the Internet at www.jkbcapital.com.

About Mohr Davidow Ventures

MDV invests in innovative entrepreneurs with deep expertise in Life Science, software and Internet services, semiconductors, networking, and energy and materials. Since its formation as an early stage venture capital firm in 1983, MDV has built a reputation among entrepreneurs as a partner by taking a hands-on approach to investments and working skillfully to architect and build successful companies. MDV partners and the firm's extended network of industry experts bring years of real-world experience to accelerate each company's time to market and optimize its long-term success. Some MDV funded companies that have gone public or were acquired include: Agile; Auspex; Broadbase; Brocade; Epigram; FormFactor; Freshwater Software; Ipsilon Networks; Kalpana; Numerical Technologies; ONI Systems; Pivotal Technologies; Rambus; Vantive; Vitesse; and Zip2 (AltaVista). The firm has $1.4 billion under management. For more information visit www.mdv.com, an early stage venture capital firm.

About Symantec

Symantec is the global leader in information security providing a broad range of software, appliances and services designed to help individuals, small and mid-sized businesses, and large enterprises secure and manage their IT infrastructure. Symantec's Norton brand of products is the worldwide leader in consumer security and problem-solving solutions. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in more than 35 countries. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

About Cenzic

Cenzic provides Hailstorm®, the next-generation enterprise software and services for automated application security assessment and compliance that allows Fortune 1000 corporations and government organizations to dramatically improve the security of Web applications. Hailstorm enables security experts, QA professionals, and developers to work together to assess, analyze, and remediate applications for security vulnerabilities, and verify compliance with security policies. Hailstorm benefits include reduced security risk and liability, lower development and testing costs, and faster time-to-market. Cenzic ClickToSecure™ service is one of the industry's first solutions to combine the power of an enterprise-class application security assessment product with the flexibility of a managed security service. Cenzic's customers are currently in the financial services, e-retail, and government sectors. For more information visit www.cenzic.com.