FireHost, the secure cloud hosting company, today announced a $12M Series D funding round led by investment partner The Stephens Group, LLC. This funding will be used to extend FireHost's innovative, industry-leading solutions in the secure cloud category. FireHost protects critical applications and data for many of the largest businesses in the world with infrastructure built for security and performance. With locations in the U.S. and Europe, FireHost customers span more than 30 countries.

"FireHost has had tremendous traction in extending the cloud into the most secure and mission-critical applications, and this investment will enable them to extend their reach in cloud and security innovation. Enterprises can no longer reactively address gaps in security," said Aaron Clark, vice president at The Stephens Group, LLC. "The company has strong and proven leadership, has a defensible advantage in the market, continues to push innovation and product development and is driven to succeed. As investors, we are thrilled with the company's continued performance and look forward to our next steps together."

Security-conscious customers such as Whole Foods, Kaiser Permanente and Casio have sought out FireHost to protect their information assets, ensure they easily meet compliance standards and perform optimally. With the Series D funding, FireHost will further expand its market presence in the enterprise market, develop new enterprise-grade solutions and further protect clients with differentiated security, compliance, performance and managed services.

FireHost has raised a total of $34M in three years, brought secure cloud hosting to the European market, introduced FluidScale, the industry's leading rebootless scaling technology, and has been recognized as the highest performing cloud infrastructure available. The company blocked more than 60 million attacks on behalf of its customers last year alone and continues to be a leading resource on security threats and how to stop them.

"Security and performance are diminishing as inhibitors to cloud adoption by all size companies, especially the enterprise. FireHost's aggressive move in this market is well-timed and the company has addressed the specific needs of these customers with their infrastructure and managed services," said Melanie Posey, research vice president of Hosting & Managed Network Services at IDC. "We're starting to see a great deal of activity and excitement in this space, especially around Infrastructure-as-a-Service. This round of funding should allow FireHost to be as aggressive as they want to be, and build on the reputation they've established as a secure cloud provider."

About FireHost

FireHost offers the most secure cloud hosting available, protecting sensitive data and brand reputations of some of the largest companies in the world. With infrastructure built for security, compliance, performance and scalability, responsible businesses choose FireHost to reduce risk and improve the collection, storage and transmission of their most confidential data. Secure cloud servers, available in Dallas, Phoenix, London and Amsterdam, offer robust, geographically redundant business continuity options across all sites. Based in Dallas, and funded by The Stephens Group, FireHost is the chosen secure cloud service provider for brands that won't compromise on the security of their payment card and healthcare data. http://www.firehost.com.

About The Stephens Group, LLC

The Stephens Group is a family-owned private equity firm based in Little Rock, Arkansas, that invests patient, flexible capital in partnership with exceptional management teams pursuing long-term growth objectives. More information can be found at www.stephensgroup.com.