Ciphertrust funding will fuel international growth

The new money comes from venture capital firms Greylock and Battery Ventures. The Series B round, which is the company's first institutional round of financing, also includes U.S. Venture Partners, Noro-Moseley Partners and Silicon Valley Bank. In conjunction with the round, Thomas Crotty, Battery Ventures general partner, and Asheem Chandna, Greylock venture partner, will join CipherTrust's board of directors.

CipherTrust CEO Steve Raber said the money would be used to develop the company's business outside the U.S. "Our overseas business is currently 10 per cent [of total revenue], but we plan to increase this to 40 per cent by the end of 2004," he said.

The company, which established a UK office last year, is opening a new French office, and will expand to Germany "soon", according to Raber. The company will also move into Asia-Pacific "by mid-year", he said.

The company may also use some of the money for acquisition of new technologies to handle wireless communications and Instant Messaging, Raber added.