Silver Tail Systems, a provider of fraud prevention solutions for Web sites, this week announced that it has secured funding from Citi Ventures, a unit of Citigroup.
The funding from Citi Ventures is part of a previously announced Series B funding round of approximately $20M, led by Silicon Valley Venture Capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in June.
In October 2010, the company received an investment from In-Q-Tel (IQT), the not-for-profit, venture capital arm of the CIA.
Silver Tail Systems provides what it calls “third generation fraud prevention” solutions, through on-premise and Software-as-a-Service models, to defend websites against “business logic abuse”. Business logic abuse is a rising concern and extremely difficult to detect and stop. The company’s Forensics and Mitigation products use behavioral analytics, investigation and real-time disruption to track suspicious behavior and divert the attempted intrusion, leaving legitimate users unaffected. The company says it currently monitors more than 750 million users and more than 1.8 billion web sessions per year across the world.
In a call with Dr. Laura Mather, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, when asked if Citigroup was customer, she wasn’t able to disclose but did say the following: “We are not able to disclose that, but we have recently gained several customers, very large financial institutions.”
“Online fraud prevention is a necessity in today’s web-based business environment,” said Timothy Eades, Chief Executive Officer at Silver Tail Systems. “This investment from Citi Ventures will fuel our continued growth as we expand our research and development and scale to meet the increasing demand for our solutions,” Eades added.
“Citi’s investment is further validation of the pioneering approach Silver Tail Systems is bringing to the market. We are happy to have Citi’s investment to help advance Silver Tail Systems’ technology leadership and market traction,” said Scott Weiss, General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz. Weiss, who serves on Silver Tail System’s Board of Directors, was co-founder and former CEO of IronPort, which was acquired by Cisco in 2007 for $850 Million.
“As people manage more and more aspects of their lives on digital and mobile platforms, cyber security is only going to become more important,” said Deborah Hopkins, Citi’s Chairman of Venture Capital Initiatives and Chief Innovation Officer. “Citi wants to help design and encourage the digital future of money, so supporting SilverTail’s break-through approach to security was an easy decision for us.”
