Fresh off the heels of Intel acquiring security software vendor McAfee for $7.7 billion in cash, another household name in the industry, AVAST Software, has raised $100 million in private equity from investment firm Summit Partners.
With the investment, Summit Partners has acquired a minority stake in the company, which markets its popular antivirus software based on a freemium model.
AVAST Software CEO Vince Steckler says the combination of offering a free product alongside a premium one has disrupted the tradition antivirus software market, where vendors often rely on advertising or installation fees for revenues. Steckler added that they’ll stick to this approach for the foreseeable future.
According to the company, its software suite – avast! antivirus – currently protects one out of every five computers around the world from malware. One of the co-founders of AVAST Software, Pavel Baudis, is cited as saying that the company’s Virus Lab adds around 3,000 new virus samples to its database on a daily basis, compared to a single virus emergence every six months when he wrote a program to remove the Vienna virus back in 1988.
We covered other Summit Partners investments in the past, including its participation in the $23 million round for Cloudmark together with Nokia Growth Partners.
Summit Partners clearly eyes Europe for interesting financing deals, too; AVAST Software is based in Prague, Czech Republic and the growth equity firm recently acquired a majority stake in Belgium-based e-payments provider Ogone.
Source: press release
Summit Partners is a growth equity firm that invests in rapidly growing companies. Founded in 1984, Summit has raised more than $11 billion in capital and has provided growth equity, recapitalization and management buyout financing to more than 320 growing companies across a range of industries and geographies. The firm supports outstanding management teams that have self-financed their companies to market leadership. Summit Partners enhances the value of these companies through infrastructure development, executive and board recruiting, and strategic...
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