In an effort to tap the growing demand from large businesses for mobile protection solutions, San Francisco-based Lookout, announced on Wednesday that it has raised a massive $150 million round of funding.
The company currently claims a customer based of more than 50 million consumer users, of which a small percentage (millions according to the company) are paying customers.
While the company will continue to grow its consumer business, it has its eyes on the lucrative enterprise technology market, and will use the new funds to extend its reach to large enterprises through new product development and expanded go-to-market efforts.
“The proliferation of mobile devices in the workplace has created a new set of security challenges for large enterprises,” said Jim Dolce, CEO of Lookout. “With this new funding and our expanding footprint of consumer users, Lookout is best equipped to deliver the solutions large enterprises need to protect their businesses from increasingly sophisticated threats targeting mobile devices.”
Lookout hopes to help enterprises address mobile threats by extending its core technology to “offer a holistic and integrated approach” to enterprise mobile security.
“Mobile is the next frontier for enterprise security globally,” said Henry Ellenbogen Portfolio Manager at T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. “As an emerging leader in mobile security, we believe that Lookout has a huge opportunity ahead of it.”
Three of the four largest mobile operators in the U.S. partner with Lookout to offer mobile security to their subscribers, Lookout said.
The funding round was led by investment funds managed by T. Rowe Price, and includes participation from new investors Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Wellington Management, Goldman Sachs and Bezos Expeditions. Existing investors Mithril Capital Management, Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners, Index Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz also participated in the round.
