SEP Leads $8m Million Investment in Metaforic

LONDON, April 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading growth equity and venture capital firm Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) has led a $8 million (GBP5m) financing round for Metaforic, a software company based in Glasgow and California which has developed products to combat piracy and hacker attacks.

The funding round was supported by the company's existing investors Pentech Ventures and the Scottish Investment Bank's Scottish Venture Fund. Metaforic will use the funds to expand its international sales and marketing activity.

Metaforic, which counts leading international video game manufacturers and enterprise software businesses in its customer base, solves a major headache for these businesses, who lose billions of pounds of revenue each year from piracy and hacker attacks on their products.

The company was founded in Glasgow by Andrew McLennan, Neil Stewart, and Linda Mackellar, and has expanded significantly under the leadership of experienced top team of Chairman Bill Krepick and Chief Executive Dan Stickel, who previously led NASDAQ-listed Macrovision, a leading provider of IP-protection technologies. The company now has a worldwide presence, with sales, engineering, and support operations in Glasgow, a sales, support, and marketing base in San Jose, California, and a sales and support presence in Tokyo, Japan.

Stuart Paterson, a partner at SEP, said: "We are very confident in the growth prospects for Metaforic. It has a very strong management team who have succeeded in this space before. Its products serve an urgent need for games companies and enterprise software businesses to deploy software solutions which prevent loss of revenue through piracy, or need the reassurance that their software has been hardened against cyber attack."

Paterson added: "Metaforic's software solutions are far more effective than rival products and much-needed. Loss of revenue from piracy in the games market alone is estimated at more than $10 billion a year. There are also strong growth opportunities in enterprise and embedded software too where we believe Metaforic's solution is the best and simplest to implement."

Metaforic CEO Dan Stickel said: "We are pleased to add such an experienced and successful firm as SEP to our investor group, and pleased that our previously existing investors have all participated in this round as well. Metaforic technology has been years in development, and has now proven itself in the field, with excellent results in multiple markets. Our customers tend to be somewhat shy about the security technologies they use, but some of the biggest names in the industry are now using Metaforic technology."

Craig Anderson, a partner at Pentech Ventures, said: "Metaforic has made considerable progress since our initial investment in 2008 along with the Scottish Investment Bank's Scottish Co-investment Fund, and is experiencing growing demand for its range of security and asset protection products, based on its unique anti-tamper technology. This latest financing round, coupled with a management team with significant industry experience, will allow the company to capitalise on this significant market opportunity."

NOTES TO EDITOR

About Metaforic

Metaforic develops and markets security and IP protection products based on revolutionary new anti-tamper technology, protecting and hardening software applications in a variety of markets on a wide range of platforms. Metaforic has offices in the United States, the UK, and Japan.

http://www.metaforic.com

About SEP

Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) is a leading growth equity and venture capital investor. Operating from offices in London and Glasgow, it focuses on technology companies with high growth global potential and works closely with them to build value. In January 2011 SEP exited from cancer therapy company BioVex by Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN, SEHK: 4332) in a deal worth $1 billion. At the end of 2010, it exited from multimedia home networking company Gigle Networks which was sold to Broadcom Corp (NASDAQ: BRCM) while Stentys, a Paris-based medical devices company completed a successful IPO on the NYSE Euronext stock market. SEP's previous investments include some of the UK's most successful technology companies including bluetooth leader CSR (LSE:CSR); and global semiconductor business Wolfson Microelectronics (LSE:WLF); as well as networks specialist Atlantech Technologies (NASD:CSCO). The current portfolio includes award-winning high growth companies including wireless communications leaders picoChip (http://www.picochip.com/); and ipaccess ; energy-related technology specialist ARKeX (http://www.arkex.com/home) ; semiconductor company Elonics (http://www.elonics.com/index.do); web traffic expert Zeus ( http://www.zeus.com/); oil technology business Deep Casing Tools (http://www.deepcasingtools.com/); flight search engine Skyscanner (http://www.skyscanner.net/); and IT analytics company Sumerian (http://www.sumerian.com/) .

For more info on SEP visit http://www.sep.co.uk

About Pentech Ventures

Pentech Ventures invests in companies developing and marketing enterprise software, SaaS solutions and internet technologies, working in applications ranging from digital media, e- commerce, social gaming and mobile advertising to software protection and software verification. The Pentech Partners and Advisory Group Members have considerable experience in starting, developing and exiting software businesses, both in Europe and in the U.S. The Pentech Fund is managed by Pentech Ventures LLP, and includes the European Investment Fund amongst its investors. Pentech Ventures is regulated by the FSA. For further information, see http://www.pentechvc.com.

About the Scottish Investment Bank

The Scottish Investment Bank (http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/fund-your-business/scottish-investment-bank.aspx) is a division of Scottish Enterprise which operates Scotland-wide, in partnership with Highlands and Islands Enterprise. It operates a suite of funds including; The Scottish Seed, the Scottish Co-investment, the Scottish Venture and the Scottish Loan Fund to support Scotland's SME funding market to ensure that businesses with growth and export potential have adequate access to growth capital, see http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/sib.

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