Mobile enterprise security startup Bluebox has raised $18 million in Series B funding from Tenaya Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sun Microsystems Co-founder Andreas Bechtolsheim, and SV Angel. Brian Melton from Tenaya Capital will join the company’s board of directors. This brings the company’s total amount raised to $27.5 million. Bluebox previously closed a $9.5 million Series A round in July 2012.
Although the company debuted two years ago to the public, Bluebox is still in stealth but the public launch is coming soon, we’re told. What we know about Bluebox’s offering is that it has developed a mobile security solution for businesses that allows enterprises to secure devices like iPhones and iPads properly. Reports have indicated that at least 85% of employees use phone/tablet applications and web-based services for both personal and work-related activities, which puts corporate information security under threat. Bluebox’s offering balances the needs of both businesses and employees, who are accessing corporate data via their personal devices.
What we do know for sure is that the team behind Bluebox has an impressive background in enterprise security. CEO Caleb Sima, who joined HP with the SPI Dynamics acquisition, was previously CTO for HP’s Application Security Center, and was responsible for the company’s web application security solutions. Prior to SPI, he worked for Internet Security Systems (ISS)’s X-Force R&D team and as a Security Engineer for S1 Corporation. Bluebox’s other co-founder Adam Ely was previously Chief Information Security Officer of the Heroku business unit at Salesforce.com, and before that, he led security and compliance at TiVo and led security within The Walt Disney Company, where he was responsible for Disney.com, ESPN.com and ABC.com. Sima says that the team “founded Bluebox with a unique approach to mobile security that focuses on what really matters—data.”
In an interview at launch in 2012, Sima told us that one of the key differentiators for Bluebox was its security DNA. “We know exactly what needs to be solved and how to solve it,” he said at the time. “That has not been addressed by anybody in the market…we’re planning to hit his market head-on and disrupt it.”
As the enterprise workforce is increasingly using their own mobile devices to access business data, the need for high-powered security options have become mandatory for businesses to adopt. Bluebox isn’t the only company to tackle this market. Competitors include Lookout and others. And the space has become increasingly acquisitive as incumbents snap up startups in this arena, with Oracle and IBM both making purchases in the past few months.