Goldman Sachs pours $52M in secure Web connections

AnchorFree gets a big injection of funding for its services that help people surf the Web anywhere

This morning Goldman Sachs announced that it led a $52 million round of Series C funding in AnchorFree, the Mountain View, Calif. maker of Internet-surfing software. 

Goldman Sachs was the sole investor in this substantial round for the proxy service that lets users connect to the Internet via remote servers.

Previously, AnchorFree raised $11 million (for Series A and B rounds) from Landmark Ventures and several others, and is now profitable because it sells ads and premium versions of its service.  This brings AnchorFree's capital to a robust $63 million.

The service has more than 60 million downloads, 10 million active monthly users and north of 100 million monthly user sessions. Now AnchorFree’s Hotspot Shield is marketed to Internet surfers on the go that don't want to risk the dangers that come with open Wi-Fi connections, especially overseas..

Hotspot Shield functions by routing your signal through its own secure data centers, making sure to add encryption as well as block out malware sites. 

The company has been profitable since 2009, and the revenues have grown roughly 100% every year since then. 

Founded in 2005, AnchorFree has gotten some great press for helping people in censored countries access the social media to fuel the information flowing regarding Arab Spring. 

In recent months, the company has launched an iOS app, added malware protection and added automatic network detection to its features.

Other Goldman Sachs investments

The company that helped bring Facebook to the Nasdaq appears to be doubling down on social media offerings online. The company has placed money in the past with LinkedIn, Dropbox, Gilt Groupe, Uber Technologies, and ZocDoc.

Goldman Sachs raised $235 million selling its stake in Facebook’s May 18 IPO. Funds that Goldman Sachs manages for the firm’s clients also raised roughly $855 million on Friday.

The bank is also in talks to invest in Spotify, the London-based music-streaming service. This discussion includes the possiblity that the music service will be valued up to $4 billion, according to reports from Bloomberg.

Last year, Spotify raised $100 million from various investors including DST Global Solutions, Accel Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers -- placing the online service at a valuation of about $1 billion.