Vulnerability management company Rapid7, commercial home of the Metasploit Project, announced today it has secured $50 million in venture funding from Technology Crossover Ventures of Palo Alto, Calif. The company said it will use the money for new hires, international expansion and to explore acquisitions. Bigger picture, Rapid7 could also position itself for an initial public offering, something CEO Mike Tuchen would not address in an interview with SearchSecurity.com.
“This will help us accelerate our ability to drive product innovation, expand our operations internationally and also go shopping,” Tuchen said. “We plan to pursue strategic acquisitions that would line up with our business. We think we have a unique portfolio in the assessment business, which is a strategically important area for us as a vendor and an important problem for companies to solve.”
Rapid7’s flagship product is its Nexpose vulnerability management platform, which scans networks, applications and databases for vulnerabilities. Rapid7 also houses the Metasploit Project and the Metasploit Framework, a platform used by penetration testers and vulnerability assessment products to execute exploits against targets. Tuchen said Metasploit, backed by its large, active open source community, was an important piece of the puzzle for investors.
“$50 million validates what we’re doing as a company and the interest in security as a sector and Rapid 7 as a company,” Tuchen said, adding that up to a half-dozen VC firms were interested in investing in Rapid7, which help push the number to $50 million.
Tuchen said his top priority for the immediate future is hiring talent to stock a new innovation center at its Boston headquarters, grow engineering teams in California and Texas and staff new international offices in London and Hong Kong.
“It’s all about hiring, and getting the right team and leadership in place and building and scaling out our engineering teams and finding the right leader in EMEA,” Tuchen said. “I’ll be busy hiring, and in my spare time, doing a little shopping.”
Rapid7 said it has grown revenue more than 900 percent over the past four years, boasting 10 quarters of record revenue through Q3 of this year. The company said it has more than 1,700 customers worldwide and is a growing company in a market whose predicted revenue, according to IDC, is expected to top $5.2 billion by 2015.
Technology Crossover Ventures general partner Tim McAdam will become the newest member of Rapid7’s board of directors. TCV is a new investor in Rapid7; Bain Capital Ventures is Rapid7’s other VC investor.
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