原始投資人揭秘IBM最新收購對象
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????IBM (IBM)上周宣布同意收購Trusteer。Trusteer是一家幫助機構防范金融詐騙和高級安全威脅的公司。雖然交易條款未予披露，但以色列一家媒體稱，收購價格在8億-10億美元之間。 ????因此，《財富》雜志決定對風投資本家史蒂夫?克勞茨進行簡短采訪，他的公司USVP在5年前曾向Trusteer注資610萬美元。以下是編輯后的訪談內容： 《財富》：最初你是怎么知道Trusteer公司的？ 克勞茨：USVP在安全領域有著較長的投資史，曾經投資過的公司包括Check Point Software (CHPK)和Imperva (IMPV)。其實，我與斯科羅莫?克萊默（Imperva首席執行官兼聯席創始人）現在還是Imperva的董事——另一位Imperva聯席創始人是麥琪?布達艾，他也是Trusteer的聯合創始人。我跟他們倆都很熟。此外，在投資以色列企業方面，USVP持有非常積極的策略，但僅限于以色列西海岸的企業。因此，斯科羅莫參與了Trusteer的A輪融資，而USVP參與了B輪融資，而且是投資Trusteer的唯一一家風投公司。
那是在2008年夏天，對嗎？那個時候投資服務于金融服務公司的創業企業確實不易…… 沒錯。我們在2008年8月完成了交易。接著，金融危機在9月份接踵而至。事實上，第一次董事會是在10月召開的。會議期間，我們都在想，90天過后，我們是否還能有一家擁有償付能力的客戶。但是我們沒有失去信心，不僅是因為我們相信我們的團隊，而且還因為，我們認為在線銀行業務會出現爆炸式的增長，而公司的原始投資活動大都基于這一信念。 為什么Trusteer沒有舉行后續融資？ ????他們之所以沒這么做是因為這家公司找到了資質良好的大型客戶。而且Trusteer本身也是一家治理完善的企業，并沒有刻意去打造大規模的銷售和營銷。公司的團隊對每一位客戶和他們的需求都了如指掌。 你覺得它會上市嗎？ 我覺得這家公司有這個潛力。它的成長速度確實很快，但是IBM很好地向Trusteer展示了自己及其自身的優勢，因此IBM勝出了。 你提到“IBM獲勝了”，這是不是說其中有競爭者存在？ 細節我不能多談。 現在距你首次投資Trusteer已經過去了5年。期間讓你感到最為驚訝的是什么？ 錢。當我們一開始達成這筆交易時，我想當然地預計，這家公司還是會走安全公司融資的老路子。但我從來沒有想到過，Trusteer僅憑兩輪融資就發展到了今天這個地步。確實令人喜出望外。（財富中文網）?? |
????IBM (IBM) this morning announced an agreement to acquire Trusteer, a provider of software that helps protect organizations against financial fraud and advanced security threats. No terms were disclosed, but an Israeli press report puts the price tag at between $800 million and $1 billion. ????So Fortune decided to speak briefly with Steve Krausz, a venture capitalist whose firm USVP led a $6.1 million investment into the company five years ago. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation: FORTUNE: How did you first hear about Trusteer? Krausz: USVP has a long history in the security space, with companies like Check Point Software (CHPK) and Imperva (IMPV). In fact, I'm still on the board of Imperva with [company CEO and co-founder] Schlomo Kramer -- and another Imperva co-founder is Mickey Boodaei, who co-founded Trusteer. So I knew both of them. Plus, we have a very active strategy of investing in Israeli companies, but from the West Coast. So Schlomo invested in Trusteer's Series A, and we came in on the Series B as the company's only VC investor. That was back in the summer of 2008, right? Rough time to back a startup aimed at financial services companies... Yes. We closed the deal in August 2008, and then then the financial crisis hit the next month. In fact, our first board meeting was in October and we sat around the table wondering if we had any customers who would be solvent in 90 days. But we didn't lose faith, both because of team and because our original investment was largely based on what we believed would be explosive growth in online banking. Why didn't Trusteer raise a follow-on round? They didn't have to because they were able to find good, large accounts. And they ran a very tight ship without really building a large sales and marketing organization. The team knew all the customers and what they wanted. Did you think it was an IPO candidate? I think it had the potential to be public, it was certainly growing fast enough, but IBM did a great job of presenting itself and its advantages to Trusteer and they prevailed. When you say "they prevailed," does that mean there was an auction process? I'm not getting into any of those details. It's been five years since you first invested. What surprised you the most? The money. When we originally did the deal I certainly had an expectation that it would follow a more normal financing trajectory for security companies. I never imagined that they could get to this point on just two checks. It was a very pleasant surprise. |
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