Big shots: Eldar and Roy Tuvey, of ScanSafe
A few years back, Eldar Tuvey, now chief executive of ScanSafe, convinced his brother Roy that the future of internet filtering would be cloud-based. Fittingly, they were on an aircraft at the time.
The brothers’ decision to set up a company based on that “crazy, crackpot idea” proved to be a wise one. Only five years after it was established, ScanSafe was sold to Cisco Systems yesterday for $183 million (£111 million).
Although spam blocking and internet filtering were familiar concepts back in 2004, the notion of dealing with the threat before it got anywhere near a customer’s computer system was revolutionary. “This market was very nascent when we started, but we believed that the threat would move from the inbox to the browser,” Eldar Tuvey said.
By 2005, ScanSafe’s business model had begun to gain serious traction as the “software as service” model became more prevalent and customers such as Google, AT&T and Orange built its technology into their web security services. With more than 2,000 customers in 100 countries, the London-based company has become a clear market leader.
ScanSafe may also be a somewhat unpopular company among workers because its software can be used to prevent employees accessing sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as instant messaging.
Yesterday’s deal represents a big payday for Balderton Capital, which backed ScanSafe in 2004 and in two subsequent funding rounds and holds a stake of about 30 per cent. Bernard Liautaud, a member of ScanSafe’s board and a partner in Balderton, said that ScanSafe had benefited from having the brothers at its helm. Eldar managed the company during its rapid-growth phase, while Roy, the company president, was more sales-driven, according to Mr Liautaud.
The sale to Cisco vindicates the brothers’ decision to leave secure jobs as investment bankers in 1999 when they founded Mailround.com, an e-mail marketing service. Eldar, who gained an MBA at Insead, was a former member of Goldman Sachs’s corporate finance division in London and Hong Kong. Roy was an investment manager for Compass Partners, a private equity firm, after being a banker with Merrill Lynch.
The two brothers, who hold a combined stake in ScanSafe of more than 25 per cent, will stay on under Cisco and will remain based in London. However, Eldar said that integrating the ScanSafe software into the network equipment giant’s global business would require a lot of travel.
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