Pindrop Security, the pioneer in phone fraud prevention and call center authentication, today announced a $35 million Series B round of financing, one of the largest Series B rounds in the history of the security industry. Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) led the round with reinvestment from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Citi Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Webb Investment Network. IVP's general partner Somesh Dash will join the Pindrop Security board of directors.
This round of financing reinforces Pindrop's leadership in the fast-growing voice anti-fraud and authentication market. Financial institutions, retailers and other enterprises are overwhelmed with identity theft and social engineering attacks from organized, professional attackers. Pindrop's patented Phoneprinting technology, combined with voice biometrics, is the first and only solution to provide significant relief from these attacks, reducing fraud losses and authentication expenses.
'Over six billion individuals across the globe have access to a phone, yet there has been little security innovation in phone or voice,' said Somesh Dash, general partner at IVP. 'Pindrop has revolutionized phone and call center security and is poised for impressive growth. Already Pindrop is protecting hundreds of millions of bank and retail customers.'
'Large financial institutions have traditionally invested heavily to protect themselves against physical and online attacks but now the bad guys have moved to the phone channel. This phone-based crime costs companies billions of dollars, which has made the demand for Pindrop products incredibly high,' said Paul Judge, Ph.D., executive chairman and co-founder, Pindrop Security.
'We are thrilled to have several of the largest US financial institutions and retail companies as customers. This additional investment will enable us to expand operations globally while continuing to serve our current customers with excellence,' said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO, Pindrop Security. 'As the clear leader in the market, Pindrop is establishing the standard for how enterprises secure the call center.'
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About Pindrop Security:
Pindrop Security, headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., is a privately-held company that provides enterprise solutions to secure phone and voice communications. Pindrop solutions reduce fraud losses and authentication expense for some of the largest banks, brokerages and retailers in the world. Pindrop's patented Phoneprinting technology can identify, locate and authenticate phone devices uniquely just from the call audio thereby detecting fraudulent calls as well as verifying legitimate callers. Named SC Magazine 2013 Rookie Security Company of the Year, a Gartner 'Cool Vendor' in Enterprise Unified Communications and Network Services for 2012 and one of the 10 Most Innovative Companies at the 2012 RSA conference, Pindrop Security's solutions restore enterprises' confidence in the security of phone-based transactions.
About Institutional Venture Partners (IVP)
With $4 billion of committed capital, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is one of the premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms in the United States. Founded in 1980, IVP has invested in over 300 companies, 101 of which have gone public. IVP is one of the top-performing firms in the industry and has a 34-year IRR of 43.2%. IVP specializes in venture growth investments, industry rollups, founder liquidity transactions, and select public market investments. Since its inception, IVP investments include such notable companies as AppDynamics, ArcSight (HPQ), Buddy Media (CRM), ComScore (SCOR), Datalogix (ORCL), Dropbox, Dropcam (GOOG), Fleetmatics (FLTX), HomeAway (AWAY), Kayak (PCLN), LegalZoom, LifeLock (LOCK), Marketo (MKTO), MySQL (ORCL), ngmoco (DeNA), OnDeck (ONDK), Pure Storage, RetailMeNot (SALE), Shazam, Snapchat, Supercell, Synchronoss (SNCR), The Honest Company, Twitter (TWTR), and Zynga (ZNGA). For more information, visit http://www.ivp.com or follow IVP on Twitter: @ivp.
About Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen Horowitz backs bold entrepreneurs who move fast, think big and are committed to building the next major franchises in technology. Founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, we provide entrepreneurs with access to our deep expertise and insights in innovation, business development, market intelligence, executive and technical talent, and marketing and brand building. Find us in Menlo Park, Calif., and at www.a16z.com.
About Citi Ventures
Headquartered in Palo Alto, with offices in New York and Shanghai, Citi Ventures is a unit of global financial services company Citigroup. The Citi Ventures team partners with Citi businesses internally and with leading companies externally to identify, invest in, develop, and commercialize the highest new growth opportunities around the world that directly support Citi's global business strategy. For more information visit ventures.citi.com.
About Felicis Ventures:
Founded in 2006, Felicis Ventures is a boutique venture capital firm based in Palo Alto. The firm invests in iconic companies reinventing core markets (Adyen, Credit Karma, Clearslide, Rovio, Shopify), as well as those creating frontier markets (Counsyl, Fitbit, Matterport, Planet Labs, Vicarious). More than 55 Felicis portfolio companies have been acquired or gone public, including Meraki (acquired by Cisco), Twitch (acquired by Amazon), Brightroll (acquired by Yahoo), and Dropcam (acquired by Google).
About Redpoint Ventures
Redpoint Ventures focuses on creating franchise and platform companies for the next generation and broadband Internet, currently focused on communications infrastructure and Enterprise infrastructure software. Redpoint was founded in the fall of 1999 by three partners each from Brentwood Venture Capital and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), two of the top ten Silicon Valley venture firms. http://www.redpoint.com/