Last year, CloudLock CEO Gil Zimmermann told Xconomy about his decision to focus his business entirely on protecting company data shared in the cloud through services like Google Apps.
Seems like it was a good move. Today the Waltham, MA-based company (FKA Aprigo) is announcing that it raised $8.7 million in Series B financing from Cedar Fund and new investor Ascent Venture Partners, which has a strong focus on enterprise software and security and compliance tech.
The idea is that employees at businesses large and small should be able to collaborate in cloud-based applications, without compromising company data security policies that have already existed for on-premise information sharing, says Zimmermann. And IT departments shouldn’t have to babysit users to make sure that’s happening, he says.
CloudLock’s software can be set to work with each client company’s policies, and can be as “aggressive” or “not aggressive” as the business would like. So, when a user sends out information he or she shouldn’t, the content can be flagged as non-compliant, users can be alerted of that violation, or the information can be removed from the application, says Zimmermann. For settings like a public school system, the software can also track when employees are using language or profanity that the school has deemed inappropriate as part of its content policy. The company charges its customers for the software on a per year, per user basis.
The newest funding will help CloudLock expand its functionality and “make collaboration more secure,” says Zimmermann. Over the last year, CloudLock has seen its revenue, its number of customers, and its users per business customer grow, he says. Clients range from businesses with 50 employees to those with tens of thousands, and span the commercial, government, and education sectors. For its part, CloudLock now has around 30 employees and hopes to grow by 50 percent this year.
“We’re looking to grow the company here in Boston and are looking for the best people to work in this really hot space,” Zimmermann says.
As far as business activity in the cloud goes, “We think that the snowball effect has already hit,” he says.
