Security software firm Seculert raises $5.35M from NVP

Norwest Venture Partners invests in Israeli-based start-up fighting malware

If your computer has been infected by malware (short for malicious software), it's possible that some cyber spy is watching your every move, maybe even stealing documents or recording conversations. Some studies have shown that there's more malware - which includes computer viruses to trojan horses to adware, to name a few - than legitimate software. And, despite how sophisticated malware preventive and detective systems have become, they're still not good enough. 

Now Seculert hopes to be a security savior and it's raised a new round of funding to be so.  

Israeli-based Seculert announced Tuesday that it's raised a $5.35 million Series A round of financing from Norwest Venture Partners, and participation from its initial seed investor YL Ventures. Dror Nahumi, a partner at NVP, has also join Seculert's board.

Seculert, founded in July 2010, is a malware detection cloud service company with no software, appliances or set-up costs. It's mostly servicing large enterprise customers, said Dudi Matot, CEO and founder, in an interview. Currently, the company has about 30 large enterprise customers across various verticals, such as entertainment, financial and energy.

The company charges clients based on the number of employees. Seculert has clients paying anywhere from $1,000 to $15,000 a month. If a company shares information with Seculert for additional analysis, the company pays by the amount of gigabytes shared. 

While Seculert sells its software as a service directly to company CIOs, CSOs, or security or risk managers, there is also a free service that can be trialed and used by IT security engineers. 

Seculert also complements the other security offerings out there, like Palo Alto Networks and Checkpoint Systems, said Matot. "All these solutions reside on premise," said Matot.  "These services are looking at what’s happening inside the network. With Seculert, we provide an additional service that tells you about infections, not online in your network but employees that connect to the enterprise remotely and any user that connects within the network."  

Seculert's funding comes at a time Palo Alto Networks is teeing itself up for an IPO. The company just announced plans to offer 4.7 million shares between $34 and $37 each. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are leading the offering.