Symantec Continues Move Into eDiscovery, Acquires Clearwell Systems For $390 Million

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Rip Empson is a writer at TechCrunch. He covers startups, music, social, mobile, health, education. Likes humans more than robots. You can reach him at rip[at]techcrunch[dot]com → Learn More

Symantec, the computer software security giant, has announced that it will be acquiring enterprise-class eDiscovery management platform maker, Clearwell Systems for $390 million.

Symantec is probably best known for its widely proliferated (perhaps even ubiquitous) Norton security products, but of late it has been making a play at eDiscovery platforms, a strategic move, considering Gartner values the market at around $1.7 billion, and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 14 percent. What’s more, Symantec spent $2 billion last year in acquisitions, $1.25+ billion of that coming in its acquisition of VeriSign, Inc.

While the company’s stock languished last year, and shareholders and more pushed for the company to break up, Symantec has pushed on. Symantec expects Clearwell to increase the company’s ability to provide its customers with archiving and backup services, considering that Clearwell is one of the more well-known information management platforms out there. I mean, hey, it was worth $390 million. Symantec’s acquisition should also reduce the amount of time and latency for getting important information to its customers.

“Archiving and eDiscovery are two critical elements of information governance,” said Aaref Hilaly, president and chief executive officer, Clearwell Systems, in a press release. “By joining forces and combining the industry’s leading archiving solution with the industry’s leading eDiscovery solution, we will be uniquely positioned to deliver a seamless, integrated information governance workflow, benefitting both Symantec and Clearwell customers.”

Company: Symantec
Website: symantec.com
Launch Date: February 23, 1982
IPO: SYMC

Symantec provides security, storage and systems management software for business and individual use. The company helps customers protect their information, identities, infrastructure and interactions by delivering software and services that address risks to security, availability, compliance and performance. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Symantec operates in more than 40 countries.

Learn more
Launch Date: June 12, 2004
Funding: $29M

Clearwell delivers the industry’s leading enterprise-class e-discovery management platform that enables corporations to simultaneously manage all of their legal, regulatory and investigative matters with a single application. With Clearwell, attorneys, litigation support professionals, and forensics teams accelerate early case assessments, lower processing costs, reduce review workload, and ensure the defensibility of the e-discovery process. Clearwell is backed by Sequoia Capital, Redpoint Ventures and DAG Ventures.

Learn more

Sponsored Ads

Sponsored Ads

Sponsored Ads