Norse Closes Series A1 Funding Round With Strategic Investment From KPMG Capital

PRESS RELEASE

FOSTER CITY, Calif., September 30, 2015 – Norse, the leader in live attack intelligence, today announced the successful closing of its Series A1 round of funding led by a strategic investment from KPMG Capital, KPMG International’s global investment fund. The investment will enable KPMG’s member firms to offer Norse threat intelligence products and services to clients through the KPMG network’s global cyber security practice. The remainder of the $11.4 million total raised in this round was provided by a group of existing investors, and the funds will be used by Norse primarily to bolster the company’s product development efforts and accelerate the expansion of its global sales organization to capitalize on high-growth market opportunities abroad.

The additional Series A1 funding now brings the total venture funding raised by Norse to $42 million.

“KPMG clearly understands the complex challenges that public and private organizations face and that threat intelligence and the insights that it brings are at the heart of the next generation of information security.  They also have a strong presence in the parts of the world where we see our greatest opportunities for growth,” said Norse CEO Sam Glines.  “KPMG Capital’s strategic investment in Norse is a strong endorsement of our technology and our approach, and we are thrilled to have our efforts recognized by such an established and highly regarded global consultancy with deep business and technology experience.”

“As trusted advisors to governments and industries around the world, KPMG member firms work to find smart, creative and forward-thinking technologies like Norse threat intelligence solutions to help address cyber security challenges,” said Mark Toon, CEO, KPMG Capital. “Through KPMG Capital’s strategic investment in Norse, we can ensure that clients will benefit from their industry-leading technologies today and in the future.”

Norse has already taken important steps towards achieving its product development and sales expansion goals.  Norse recently announced the appointment of Andrew Lewman to the newly created position of vice president of data development, where he will extend Norse’s lead in gathering, processing and applying live threat intelligence for the next generation of enterprise security solutions.  Norse also named David Weier, an accomplished sales executive with more than 20 years of experience building and leading high-performance sales teams, as senior vice president of worldwide sales.

Norse’s family of enterprise threat intelligence solutions includes the Norse Appliance™ 10g and the Norse Intelligence Service™, a turnkey “early-warning-as-a-service” that helps large financial services firms and government agencies quickly identify compromised systems, spot malicious activity and track attacks while they are still under way.

By analyzing the large amount of data that comes through its network, Norse’s suite of solutions gives organizations the ability to instantly assess the risk level and threat context of connections both inside and outside their networks. Threats are identified in near real time, allowing companies to block the sources of threats as they happen.

Norse’s in-house team of cyber intelligence and counterintelligence fusion analysts, many recruited directly from military and government intelligence organizations, are at the core of the Norse Threat Intelligence Service.  These security professionals deeply understand the wider threat landscape and each customer’s incident response options and offer the crucial human touch missing from fully automated solutions.

About KPMG Capital

KPMG Capital Limited and KPMG Capital Holding Limited comprise an investment fund for KPMG member firms. The investment fund is not open to third-party investment and will not, itself, provide professional services to clients.  KPMG Capital Limited and KPMG Capital Holding Limited are legally distinct and separate from KPMG International Cooperative and each KPMG member firm.

Like every member firm in the KPMG global network, KPMG Capital, and the entities it invests in, is subject to the same rules and regulations promulgated by the regulatory, bodies responsible for establishing standards for auditor Independence (for example, the US SEC, PCAOB, AICPA, IESBA and those established by the various countries in which the investments reside). These rules apply to member firms, the individuals at such member firms and the targets for potential joint venture, alliance or acquisition related to the activities of KPMG Capital. All existing Independence protocols apply to KPMG Capital.

About KPMG International

KPMG is a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. We operate in 155 countries and have more than 162,000 people working in member firms around the world. The independent member firms of the KPMG network are affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative ("KPMG International"), a Swiss entity. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such.

About Norse

Norse is the global leader in live attack intelligence, helping companies block the threats that other systems miss. Serving the world’s largest financial, government and technology organizations, Norse intelligence dramatically improves the performance, catch-rate and return-on-investment of the entire security infrastructure. The Norse Intelligence Network, a globally-distributed distant early warning grid of millions of sensors, honeypots, crawlers and agents, delivers unmatched visibility into difficult-to-penetrate geographies and darknets, where bad actors operate. Norse processes hundreds of terabytes daily against a 7 petabyte attack history database, and weighs over 1,500 variables to compute real-time risk scores for millions of IP addresses and URLs every day. For more information, visit www.norsecorp.com.

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