V-Key Inc., a pioneer and inventor of mobile applications intrusion protection and intelligence, today announced it has secured Series A funding of US$4 million from IPV Capital, a leading early growth venture capital fund based in China with global offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Silicon Valley.

The fund will be used to widen the startup's research and development capabilities in mobile applications security and intelligence technology, as well as to expand V-Key's global sales and support operations in the United States and Asia Pacific.

Mobile applications, with sensitive business-critical mobile transactions and data, hold the crown jewels of any enterprises and users. Custom targeted and automated attacks on mobile devices and applications are the fastest growing area of new attacks around the globe. V-Key's V-Guard suite of technology is a revolutionary, next generation, comprehensive mobile apps security solution protecting the mobile applications sphere from threats of known and unknown application-level attacks. Through a unique combination of heuristic correlation algorithms, as well as a state of the art secure mobile virtual machine firewall wrapper, V-Guard is a secure, simple to use protection and intelligence suite.

Benjamin Mah, CEO and Co-founder of V-Key, said: "Traditional methods of managing mobile device security policies via trusting the native mobile operating system offer a basic level start. However, the world needs an advanced security protection and mobile threat analytics to address advanced persistence threats in the mobile apps landscape."

"V-Key's advanced detection, protection and intelligence at the mobile apps level is the next generation approach to defend against these advanced, rapid mobile threats, yet delivers the desired results of simplicity, reliability and scalability to mobile business applications. We have a strong pipeline of innovations and will leverage this round of funding to speed our commercial efforts and gain wider customer adoption," Mah elaborated.

"We are attracted to V-Key because its offerings deliver solutions that address critical security challenges in the enterprise mobility sphere. The growing use of mobile devices at the enterprise and consumer levels form a sizeable market opportunity for advanced mobile apps security solutions. V-Key, with its market-defining technology and experienced executive management, is poised to create a paradigm shift in how organizations think about mobile security, and we are excited to be part of that," said Terence Tan, Managing Partner at IPV Capital.

Eddie Chau, V-Key's Chairman and Co-founder, said: "The funding from IPV Capital underscores V-Key's technological vision and the ease of use of our security solutions suite. Demand for mobile app security, data and transaction assurance, and regulatory compliance products is growing faster than anyone has anticipated as organizations worldwide come to terms with the financial, legal, and business responsibilities for sensitive information and transaction data on the mobile devices. Our goal is to deliver a simple, yet powerful and intelligent security solution that improves users' confidence and experience in today's mobile apps-driven world."

V-Key vis-à-vis the Enterprise Mobile Security Eco-system

The traditional strategies to enterprise mobile security involve three areas: mobile data protection, network access control and mobile device management tools. V-Key offers an alternative focused approach by ensuring security at the mobile applications level.

The design approach behind V-Key's technology does not assume the mobile phone to be secure. Instead, the entire V-Key architecture is premised on the need for mobile applications to remain secure, even if an attacker has compromised the underlying mobile operating system. V-Key's suite of products provides multiple layers of detection to secure the organization's slew of mobile applications, thereby safeguarding the integrity of sensitive corporate information. V-Key's solution is simply pre-installed as part of the enterprise's app stores internally, and transparently secures the enterprise information when employees download enterprise mobile apps such as email and VPN log-on to access business data.

Similarly, organizations offering external mobile applications services, such as m-commerce and e-trading, to external customers stand to benefit from V-key's technology. The solution transforms any enterprise mobile applications, such as mobile banking, to an intelligent threat-aware mobile application that allows transactions to take place, despite an unsecured environment. Critical user information is protected without any additional complex installation on the users' mobile devices.

About IPV Capital

IPV Capital is an early growth venture capital fund that invests in high-growth technology sectors including software, cleantech, technology services and semiconductor. With offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Silicon Valley, IPV Capital brings its wealth of management and technology development experience to mentor a new breed of entrepreneurs with global aspirations. The IPV Capital team has a solid track record in successfully growing technology startups in China and beyond, making it the ideal go-to partner for investment in the country. For more information, see www.ipvcap.com.

About V-Key Inc.

V-Key focuses on mobile application threat research, protection, and intelligence solutions. V-Key researches into the latest mobile threats and delivers advanced protections to meet the evolving mobile application threat landscape, powered by its patent pending V-OS secure mobile middleware and V-Guard suite of products. For more information, please visit www.v-key.com or email enquiries to: pr@v-key.com.