h3. Cloud Security company continues rapid growth as Federal Governments & Global 2000 customers increasingly battle cyber attacks and demand DDoS protection systems.
HOLLYWOOD, FL — (March 28, 2011) Prolexic Technologies has announced the completion of a $13.9 million financing led by Kennet Partners, a leading technology growth equity investor. Javier Rojas, Managing Director at Kennet, and Gustavo Alberelli, Director at Kennet, will join the board.
Founded in 2003, Prolexic was the first company to establish global scrubbing centers to stop DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks in the Cloud. Leveraging unique filtering techniques, high-speed bandwidth and peering, advanced routing and other patent-pending devices, Prolexic provides the most advanced and powerful DDoS detection and network protection systems available.
Prolexic’s DDoS mitigation service utilizes the company’s proprietary mitigation & control software and its experienced global security operations team together with the necessary bandwidth and hardware to fend off DDoS cyber attacks. Regardless of an attack’s size or complexity, Prolexic ensures its customers are protected.
Both the Federal government and private sector have experienced a surge in cyber attacks. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal agencies suffered 41,776 cyber attacks in 2010, an increase of almost 40% over 2009. In the private sector, several Global 2000 companies experienced cyber attacks following the recent Wikileaks ordeal, which highlighted the disruptive power of larger DDoS attacks.
“DDoS attacks have become costly forms of cyber-crime, and they are increasingly being proactively addressed by businesses to avoid the devastating costs of DDoS-related downtime,” said Kennet’s Javier Rojas.
Roger Stone, Prolexic’s board representative from previous investor, IPVG Corp. (PSE: IP), said, "Since Prolexic offers customers the best cyber defense available against DDoS attacks, we have seen demand for our product offerings increase exponentially. Kennet’s expertise in helping technology companies expand throughout the United States & Europe will be a great complement to IPVG’s strong network in Asia-Pacific.”
Kennet’s Gustavo Alberelli added, “As organizations of all sizes increasingly adopt Cloud computing solutions, DDoS and cyber attacks have soared in both frequency and sophistication. Prolexic has quickly emerged as the leader in Cloud Security and demand for its differentiated products has intensified. Kennet looks forward to building Prolexic into an industry leader.”
h2. About Prolexic Technologies
Founded in 2003, Prolexic is an IT security provider of Cloud-based cyber defense solutions, such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) detection and mitigation, for the Federal Government and Global 2000 customers. For more information please visit www.prolexic.com
h2. About Kennet Partners
Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in North America and Europe. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $600 million in funds under management. www.kennet.com
h3. Kennet supports WorldOne, a high-growth provider of data collection services to the healthcare industry, in its global expansion.
London, 8 September 2011 Kennet Partners, the technology growth equity investor, has announced a $25 million investment in WorldOne, a market leader in global healthcare data collection. The financing will be used to accelerate WorldOne’s global expansion and to fund continued development of new business lines. Michael Elias, Managing Director at Kennet, will join the Board of Directors of WorldOne.
WorldOne delivers global services to its customers in the healthcare market research sector, delivering access to the worldwide healthcare community. Since its establishment in London in 2000, WorldOne has developed a panel of 500,000 physicians and 200,000 healthcare professionals enabling the company to deliver large-scale projects in 80 countries. The company has greatly expanded its operations from Europe to North America and Asia, providing a true global offering to its customers. WorldOne’s international presence, commitment to quality and high level of client satisfaction has led the company to achieve consistently high growth. In 2010, WorldOne completed over 300,000 interviews with medical professionals for almost 2,000 market research projects.
“We have been enormously impressed by WorldOne’s growth profile and its dynamic leadership team. They have built a unique global healthcare panel, which is a tremendous asset upon which can be developed a number of exciting new business activities. Our investment in WorldOne is the result of our commitment to backing high growth, founder-led businesses and giving them the means to achieve their full growth potential”, said Michael Elias, Managing Director at Kennet.
Peter Kirk, CEO of WorldOne said “Having an investor like Kennet make a $25m commitment is a strong vote of confidence in what we have achieved and where WorldOne is headed. Kennet was an easy choice given its exceptional management team and history of success. WorldOne will benefit on multiple levels from Kennet’s investment and involvement. We look forward to the future.”
h2. About Kennet Partners
Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in Europe and North America. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $600 million in funds under management. For more information: www.kennet.com. Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the UK by the Financial Services Authority.
h2. About WorldOne
Founded in 2000, WorldOne Research Ltd. has 330+ employees and is headquartered in New York and London, with regional offices in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sao Paolo and Mexico City. WorldOne is an international research agency specializing in healthcare data collection for leading market research companies, agencies, and consulting firms. With one of the largest healthcare focused panels in the industry, WorldOne’s client portfolio includes the world’s top healthcare agencies and brands. WorldOne offers both online and offline access to medical professionals in over 80 countries. For more information: www.worldone.com
h3. Kennet will support Next Performance, a high growth provider of online performance marketing services, with its continued expansion.
PARIS - 31 May, 2011 Kennet Partners, the technology growth equity investor has announced a €16 million investment in Next Performance, a fast growing online advertising company that specialises in dynamic retargeting. The financing will be used to fund Next Performance’s continued European expansion. Michael Elias, Managing Director at Kennet, and Hillel Zidel, Director at Kennet, will join the Board of Directors of Next Performance.
Next Performance delivers high value retargeting and audience targeting services for brands and large retailers using its proprietary optimization technology. Next Performance’s innovative offering includes dynamic personalized banners, local targeting and massive reach campaigns on multiple business models (CPA, CPC and CPM). Since its establishment in 2008, Next Performance has expanded rapidly - its client base has increased from 11 customers in January 2009 to over 500 in May 2011. The combined retargeting and audience targeting proposition has enabled Next Performance to provide advertisers with a unique solution both to retarget existing customers as well as to acquire new customers.
“We’ve been extremely impressed with the rapid growth of Next Performance, a great example of a founder-led, bootstrapped business. Our investment in Next Performance is the result of our continued focus on the online advertising segment both in Europe and the US”, said Michael Elias, Managing Director at Kennet.
Vincent Karachira, CEO of Next Performance said “After a thorough selection process, we felt that Kennet would be the ideal investor in Next Performance because of their experience of working with companies as they expand internationally and their successful track record in the online advertising sector. Next Performance is already operating its retargeting business in 10 countries, and we will use the capital to significantly expand our international presence.” He added “We are pleased to welcome Kennet on board as a strategic partner.”
Hillel Zidel, Director at Kennet, said “The demand for dynamic retargeting has grown significantly as a result of the high level of performance it provides and Next Performance is uniquely positioned as one of the leaders in the category.”
h2. About Kennet Partners
Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in North America and Europe. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $600 million in funds under management. For more information: www.kennet.com. Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the UK by the Financial Services Authority.
h2. About Next Performance
Launched in 2008, Next Performance delivers high value online retargeting and audience targeting services for brands and large retailers. The company has 500 clients across Europe (France, UK, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal). Working with ad exchanges, networks and exclusive publishers and using its proprietary optimization technology, Next Performance delivers billions of personalized dynamic banner impressions per month. For more information: www.nextperformance.com.
On 14 April 2011, Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS) and selling shareholders placed 7,700,000 American Depositary Shares (ADS) at a price of $10.00 per ADS, implying a market capitalization of $365 million.
Sequans became a Kennet portfolio company in July 2006 when we led a €17 million financing of the business. The company has since become a global leader in the design and development of 4G chipsets. Sequans is the first French company to list on NYSE since 2002.
Based in Paris, Sequans is a leading fabless designer, developer and supplier of 4G semiconductor solutions for wireless broadband applications. Its products incorporate baseband processor and RF transceiver ICs along with proprietary signal processing techniques, algorithms and software stacks to deliver high throughput, low latency, strong signal reach, low power consumption and high reliability in a small form factor and at a low cost. Sequans shipped more than 4.6 million units during 2010, compared to more than 0.9 million units during 2009.
Since Kennet has been a shareholder, the company grew from $6 million revenues in 2006 to over $68 million revenues in 2010.
Sequans is a terrific example of the kind of high-growth technology business that is at the core of Kennet's investment strategy.
h3. Second exit for Kennet’s latest fund in the past three months.
London, 31 January, 2011 - Kennet Partners, a leading international growth equity investor, today announced that goviral, the international online distributor of branded video content, has been acquired by AOL Europe, part of AOL Inc. [NYSE: AOL], for total consideration of $96.7 million.
Kennet invested €6.5 million in goviral in March 2009 and was the company’s only external shareholder. The acquisition of goviral will provide Kennet’s latest fund (Kennet III, which closed in 2008) with a strong return on its investment and is the fund’s second exit in the past three months.
goviral distributes branded video content for over 500 clients that include some of the world's most famous superbrands including Nike, Sony, Coke, Nokia, Audi, Mercedes and Proctor & Gamble. goviral's distribution network consists of over 18,000 publishers, leading social networks and mobile applications that generate up to 60 million video views each month and reach over 350 million internet users worldwide. goviral is headquartered in Copenhagen, with offices in Frankfurt, London, Munich, Stockholm, and Paris.
“The founders and management team at goviral have done a terrific job at building a valuable business without any outside capital. In fact, our 2009 investment was used solely to purchase existing shares from an early shareholder, and was non-dilutive to the company’s founders and management. goviral is a 100% bootstrapped business and we are very proud to have been associated with the company.” said Kennet Managing Director, Michael Elias, who joined the goviral board at the time of Kennet’s investment.
“We have had an exciting time and much fun building our business. It has been a period of extreme growth and international expansion. Kennet’s experience and business understanding has been very valuable as we developed our strategic positioning and built out our management team“ said goviral’s CEO, Rene Rechtman.
Arma Partners acted as exclusive financial adviser to goviral.
h2. About Kennet Partners
Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in Europe and North America. Kennet invests in internet, technology, and business services companies, offering expansion capital for growth and for liquidity to existing shareholders. Kennet has funds under management of approximately $600 million.
For more information: www.kennet.com.
Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the U.K. by the Financial Services Authority.
h2. About goviral
goviral A/S distributes branded video content for over 500 clients that include some of the world's most famous superbrands such as Nike, Sony, Coke, Nokia, Audi, Mercedes and Proctor & Gamble. goviral's distribution network consists of over 18,000 publishers, leading social networks and mobile applications categorised in 24 vertical that generate up to 60 million video views each month and reach over 350 million internet users worldwide. goviral's unique value proposition is guaranteeing clients a minimum number of targeted video views, bought on a pay-for-performance basis.
For more information: www.goviral.com
Media Enquiries
Kennet: Janina Jablonski, +44 207 839 8020, jjablonski@kennet.com
On 4 October 2010 Amazon.com announced it had agreed to acquire BuyVIP S.L