Qualys, Inc. Secures $20M in Second Round Financing

San Francisco, CA — April 10, 2001 — Qualys, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise network vulnerability assessment and monitoring solutions, today announced the completion of its second round of venture financing and that Philippe Courtot, formerly CEO of Signio, Verity and cc:Mail, has joined the company as chairman and CEO. The announcement comes as Qualys extends its web-hosted vulnerability assessment and monitoring platform to meet the global network scanning requirements of the fast-growing Managed Security Provider (MSP) industry.

Qualys has raised $20 million in its second round of financing. Main second-round founders include Trident Capital, a private equity firm focused on the network economy, and ABS Ventures, a leading independent, institutional venture capital firm. Original investors included Bessemer Venture Partners and VeriSign, the leading provider of Internet trust services. Qualys’ most recent financing will support the company’s expanded research and development and worldwide marketing efforts.

Philippe Courtot joined Qualys in December, 2000 as chairman of the board and CEO. An early private investor in Qualys, Mr. Courtot has a track record of transforming small, innovative companies into industry leaders. This has included managing Signio into a significant E-commerce player and engineering its sale to VeriSign in a purchase valued in excess of a billion dollars. As CEO of Verity, he oversaw the company’s emergence as the leader in enterprise knowledge retrievals solutions and directed its initial public offering. As CEO of cc:Mail, he grew an unknown startup into the dominant e-mail platform provider with a 40% market share before its sale to Lotus.

“Qualys is well positioned to lead in the security marketplace through its unique global delivery platform for Managed Security Providers and its strong management,” said David Cowan, managing partner of Bessemer Venture Partners and a member of VeriSign’s board of directors. “In Phillipe Courtot, Qualys has attracted a seasoned CEO who is known for turning pioneers into market leaders and who is superbly qualified to guide Qualys through its next stages of growth.”

“Network security is a mounting challenge for corporations, particularly as they extend network access to trading partners and customers,” said Donald R. Dixon of Trident Capital. “As companies increasingly outsource their security to the new breed of Managed Security Providers, we believe that the market for remote vulnerability assessment solutions will rapidly expand and that, under the guidance of Philippe Courtot, Qualys will continue to grow its leadership position in this important market space.”

Qualys enables businesses to continuously and accurately audit their networks via the Internet to detect security vulnerabilities. The company’s vulnerability assessment and monitoring platform enables MSPs, systems integrators and other security professionals to launch comprehensive remote security auditing services that detect vulnerabilities across any sized network, assess the severity of each weakness, and provide alerts and suggested fixes in an easily understood graphical format.

In recent months, Qualys has established partnerships with major security consulting companies, including eSecurityOnline (eSO)-the premier e-Security portal subsidiary of Ernst & Young-as well a Ubizen and Predictive Systems/Global Integrity. Qualys has also increased its customer base by over 400 percent in the past six months, adding such industry-leading companies as Agilent Technologies, Apple Computer, Bank of the West, Siebel Systems, and Broadwing to its roster of clients.

“Vulnerability assessment and monitoring is one of the most important and fastest growing segments of the Internet security industry, and it is clear to us that Qualys has the potential to lead this market,” said Jin Byun of ABS Ventures. “That some of the industry’s leading players have already selected Qualys as their vulnerability assessment tool of choice validates the value and the viability of Qualys technology as an effective base on which to build a proactive enterprise security strategy.”

“At a time when large investments in young companies are a relative rarity, two leading firms have chosen to invest in Qualys,” said Philippe Courtot. “Their commitment is a strong confirmation of the mounting need for automatic detection of network vulnerabilities and of Qualys’ ability to meet that need.”

French and Basque born, Mr. Courtot has been in Silicon Valley since August, 1987. He holds a Masters degree in Physics from the University of Paris.

About ABS Ventures

ABS Ventures is a leading independent, early stage institutional venture capital firm with offices in Baltimore, Vienna VA, New York, and San Francisco. ABS has been actively investing in leading information technology companies since 1982. The Firm has invested in over 100 companies and generally serves as active lead investors. ABS invests throughout the United States in private technology companies developing products or services in the areas of Communications and Software. ABS’ focus and expertise in the communications and software industry has led to many investments in successful companies such as Cascade Communications, Wellfleet Communications, Harmonic Lightwaves, Banyan, Telogy Networks, Daleen Technologies, SQA, Anadigics, Sun Microsystems, and Transmeta. ABS Ventures V is currently actively investing $600 million in emerging growth technology companies. The sole limited partner of ABS is Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown. This relationship and the ability to bring the resources of one of the world’s largest financial institutions and most successful technology investment banks to bear on behalf of ABS portfolio companies, helps to further ensure the success of ABS-sponsored entrepreneurs.

About Trident Capital

In 1993, Trident Capital was founded with a clear vision: to invest in information and business services companies. Trident made it their business to understand the markets, the movers, the technology and the potential. Trident’s focus on information and business services led them to become early investors in Internet companies, including MapQuest and CSG Systems. To date, they have raised five funds and have over $1.3 Billion in Capital under management. Trident continues to back businesses that capitalize on the ever-growing importance of information connectivity. By leveraging their operating experience and influential contacts, Trident has helped talented entrepreneurs to build many successful companies. A number of companies from Trident earlier funds are now public. Many of Trident recent investments are becoming leaders in their marketplaces. Investment sectors on Trident’s radar screen include: the Internet; infrastructure management; outsourcing; transaction services; wireless and information technology.

About Qualys

With more than 2,000 subscribers ranging from small businesses to multinational corporations, Qualys has become the leader in on demand vulnerability management and policy compliance. The company allows security managers to strengthen the security of their networks effectively, conduct automated security audits and ensure compliance with internal policies and external regulations. Qualys’ on demand technology offers customers significant economic advantages, requiring no capital outlay or infrastructure to deploy and manage. Its distributed scanning capabilities and unprecedented scalability make it ideal for large, distributed organisations. Hundreds of large companies have deployed Qualys on a global scale, including AXA, DuPont, Hershey Foods, ICI Ltd, Novartis, Sodexho, Standard Chartered Bank and many others. Qualys is headquartered in Redwood City, California, with European offices in France, Germany and the U.K., and Asian representatives in Japan, Singapore, Australia, Korea and the Republic of China. For more information, please visit www.qualys.com.

Qualys, the Qualys logo and QualysGuard are proprietary trademarks of Qualys, Inc. All other products or names may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Media Contact:
Tami Casey
Qualys
media@qualys.com