FireMon’s Momentum Drives Majority Investment From Insight Venture Partners

OVERLAND PARK, KS, (Marketwired via COMTEX) -- FireMon, the top provider of proactive security intelligence solutions, today announced that Insight Venture Partners, a leading global private equity and venture capital firm, has acquired a majority interest in the company. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed.

FireMon's executive team will continue to lead the firm, with Gary Fish serving as Executive Chairman and Jody Brazil as CEO. Customers and partners will see no change in the company's business strategy, product plans, partner-focused go-to-market strategy and technology partnerships. As part of the transaction, Insight Managing Director Mike Triplett and Principal Martin Angert will join FireMon's Board of Directors.

"FireMon is dedicated to delivering innovative security intelligence solutions to customers worldwide and the investment from Insight Venture Partners will strengthen our ability to execute on that vision," said FireMon CEO Jody Brazil. "The FireMon Security Intelligence Platform has a multi-year lead on all competitors and serves the most critical needs of enterprises, government agencies and MSSPs. FireMon products offer the massive scalability, real-time performance, open API extensibility and integrated intelligence collection, analysis and simulation to win the cybersecurity arms race."

Insight's investment will accelerate what has already been dramatic growth for FireMon in 2014, highlighted by:
 

• More than 120 percent sales growth compared to Q1 2013 fueled by new customer acquisition, global expansion and repeat purchases to expand current installation.
• In excess of 30 percent employee growth year-to-date to accommodate unprecedented worldwide demand, with key company additions in sales, marketing, engineering and customer support.
• Engaged with more than 50 federal agencies participating in the $6 billion Department of Homeland Security Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program.
• More than 100 percent growth in quarter-over-quarter sales by channel partners worldwide, including Singapore, Australia, Brazil and Mexico.
• Topping 45 percent growth in new account wins compared to Q1 2013, including Frontier Airlines, Michaels Stores, Nuveen, Sony Music Entertainment, The Jones Group and World Bank in North America; and Aguas Andinas, CODELCO, Genpact, Meritz and Mindray Medical in EMEA, APAC and LATAM.
• An unmatched 54 percent of FireMon customers worldwide reported payback on their investments in a year or less, according to research by industry leader TechValidate.

"Securing large networks continues to be a daunting task, as major data breaches around the world confirm almost daily," said FireMon Founder and Executive Chairman Gary Fish. "The world's leading enterprises, government agencies and MSSPs trust our people, technology and platform to provide them with the real-time visibility and intelligence needed to proactively automate and fortify their network defenses. This new investment by Insight Venture Partners will enable FireMon to accelerate our plans to solidify Network Security Intelligence as a cornerstone in the global cybersecurity market, and further establish FireMon as the technology and market share leader in this critical space."

"Network Security Intelligence represents one of the most strategic segments in the cybersecurity market. Security teams need to automate vital operational processes to continuously monitor security, risk and compliance so they can spend more time on proactive efforts that can prevent data breaches," said Insight Venture Partners Managing Director Mike Triplett. "We are thrilled to be partnering with such a deep and experienced team at FireMon, and look forward to working with them to continue building a market-leading business in security software."

Signal Hill served as FireMon's M&A advisor; Polsinelli as legal advisors; and BKD as accounting advisors. Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP served as legal advisors to Insight.

About FireMon
FireMon is the industry leader in proactive security intelligence solutions for large organizations that deliver continuous control of infrastructure, policy and IT risk. The FireMon Security Intelligence Platform is a massively scalable, high-performance foundation for network risk detection, change workflow automation, firewall rule base clean-up, compliance audit assessment and security operations cost reduction. For more information, visit http://www.firemon.com .

About Insight Venture Partners
Insight Venture Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight has raised more than $8 billion and invested in more than 200 companies worldwide. Our mission is to find, fund and work successfully with visionary executives providing them with practical, hands-on growth expertise to foster long-term success. For more information on Insight and all of its investments, visit insightpartners.com or follow us on Twitter: @insightpartners.