Irish data security player raises US$3.25m


24 May 2005

Dublin-based Shenick has raised US$3.25m in a funding round led by France Telecom-sponsored venture capital firm Innovacom and Trinity Venture Capital. It is envisaged Shenick could become a global security player in the expanding triple play and Metro Ethernet broadband fields.

Joining Shenick’s board of directors will be Bruno Dizengremel of Innovacom and Karl Schutte of Trinity Venture Capital.

Irish tech veteran and chairman of the Irish government’s Enterprise Strategy Group Eoin O’Driscoll, who is also chairman of Shenick, said: “Bruno and Karl bring their considerable talents and experience in assisting high-growth technology companies move into the realm of major global players at a time when Shenick is gaining significant customer traction and aggressively executing its expansion plans.”

Shenick’s DiversifEye emulation and performance-analysis test system has been widely deployed with the world’s leading service providers, communications equipment vendors and enterprises in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region.

As new business and consumer services such as triple-play internet, voice and TV services are rolled out and enhanced broadband business virtual private network (VPN) services such as Metro Ethernet are rolled out, Shenick’s technology is envisioned as a key test component in the drive to assure quality of service and greater levels of end-user confidence in seeing off network security attacks.

Commenting on the latest investment, Shenick’s CEO, Alan Robinson said: “Innovacom brings considerable expertise to Shenick from the network service provider space. DiversifEye has been deployed in more than 14 countries now and we will be using this investment to help continue to build our sales and marketing presence in the European, North American and Asia Pacific marketplaces.

“Since 2003, when Trinity Venture Capital invested in Shenick and our DiversifEye product line was successfully launched, we have won high-value initial sales and increasing repeat business within targeted key accounts that have the capacity to generate significant amounts of business for Shenick and this investment will help fuel our aggressive expansion plans,” Robinson concluded.

By John Kennedy