Plymouth Ventures, a venture capital firm in Ann Arbor, MI, has made the first investment from its third fund in Certified Security Solutions (CSS), a company based in Cleveland, OH. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
CSS is an information security company—it’s been in business more than a decade—that focuses on identification and authentication. When you log on to a bank’s website or any other site that does transactions, CSS and companies like it issue certificates that guarantee the page is legitimate. CSS oversees the building of public key infrastructure (PKI) software, integrates PKI-enabled applications, and manages the lifecycle of digital certificates.
Kevin Terrasi, a partner at Plymouth Ventures, says security is a hot sector in IT, with a number of large corporations like Symantec snapping up smaller startups to boost their offerings. Millions of certifications of authenticity are issued each year, and Terrasi expects that number to dramatically increase as the “Internet of Things” takes hold and more of our devices, electronics, and appliances are online and talking to one another.
Terrasi says Plymouth Ventures liked the team behind CSS, and “their products provide customers industry leading solutions for their public key infrastructure.” That made the company a perfect candidate for investment. Terrasi will take a seat on the CSS board to help with the company’s growth.
