Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Rapid7 secures a quick $7M in first funding

By Efrain Viscarolasaga

After eight years in business, and seven years shipping product, Boston-based security software maker Rapid7 Inc. has secured its first round of private financing, bringing in $7 million from Bain Capital Ventures. In addition, the firm has added two new executives to help lead the company through its next phase of growth, officials said.

Mike Tuchen, previously the general manager of the SQL Server Marketing team at Microsoft Corp., will take the reigns as day-to-day leader of Rapid7 as president and COO, while former BladeLogic Inc. vice president of finance Timothy O’Toole will take the role of CFO.

Founded in 2000 by Alan Matthews, who also helped create Woburn-based Percussion Software Inc. and other firms, Rapid7 has been shipping its network vulnerability management software since 2001, boasting more than 400 customers, according to officials.

Bootstrapped since its inception, the company has doubled sales for each of the past four years, according Tuchen, though he would not provide precise revenue numbers. The new funding will be used to build the 75-person company across all areas, said Tuchen, as the company eyes growth in the IT security industry.

Rapid7’s flagship product, NeXpose, which has been shipping since 2001, is a software platform that seeks out security vulnerabilities in a network and proposes solutions. Customers include Black and Decker, Revlon and the City of Philadelphia.

“We are also being used at Carnegie Mellon University, which hosts a network security research group called CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team),” said Tuchen. “We think that is a pretty good endorsement.”

Rapid7 maintains offices in both Boston and Los Angeles.