The $150-million early-stage technology venture capital fund, IDG Ventures India, and part of the IDG Ventures global network of venture capital funds, has announced its investment of $ 2.5 million in innovative network security and vulnerability management startup iViZ, founded by an IIT Kharagpur alumni who has introduced the world's first automated and on-demand penetration testing product.
Kolkata-based iViZ has addresses the over $10 billion global security and vulnerability management market where losses due to identity theft in the US alone have been estimated at at annual $ 48 billion. The security and vulnerability management market has been growing annually at over 18 per cent. .
''It is our privilege to support iViZ founded by Bikash Barai and Nilanjan De,'' said Sudhir Sethi, chairman and managing director, IDG Ventures India. ''This investment is based on our thrust of investing in disruptive software product firms out of India with a potential to scale globally. Security is a key market for us. iViZ has built a highly committed and innovative team whose first product has already generated significant market traction and is well positioned to be a leader worldwide,''
iViZ received recognition as being amongst Asia's top five security startups in the Global Security Challenge held by London Business School in September 2007. The company plans to utilise the investment to build its sales team in North America, Europe, Middle East/APAC and India and to significantly enhance its product development initiatives.
Nilanjan De, the co-founder and CTO of iViZ elaborated on the product saying, ''We have used artificial intelligence techniques and simulation of next generation hacking techniques to build the product. Unlike current penetration testing process which is manual and non comprehensive our product can detect vulnerabilities and also its corresponding remedies in a completely automated way''.
Sethi and Hemir Doshi will join the board of directors at iViZ representing IDG Ventures India. Sethi has over 25 years of operating, investment and board experience and is credited with seed funding Mindtree Consulting. Doshi, focuses on software products and services as investment advisor at IDG Ventures India and has prior risk management and strategy consulting experience.
The global network of IDG Ventures have funds over $2 billion under management and a portfolio of over 220 companies built over the last 15 years. The IDG Ventures network comprises six independent partnerships managing funds in North America and Asia. Each partnership makes investments on behalf of its limited partners, including International Data Group (IDG), the world's largest IT media company.
Source: Domain B