Cloudmark, a firm specialising in carrier-grade messaging security, has secured USD23m in a round of funding led by new investor Summit Partners and joined by Nokia Growth Partners, the venture capital investing arm of mobile phone supplier Nokia.

Existing investors Ignition Partners and Industry Ventures also participated in the round.

The new funding was used to assist in Cloudmark’s acquisition of Bizanga and is the first investment Cloudmark has raised since 2004.

“Today’s carriers must deploy the best defences against emerging and sophisticated messaging threats,” says Hugh McCartney, chief executive officer, Cloudmark. “Our goal is to leverage the recently acquired messaging platform and Cloudmark’s proven world-class messaging security technology to provide the industry’s most powerful, unified messaging security solution for operators. We are delighted to have raised new capital from both Summit Partners and Nokia Growth Partners, and their support and global experience will help guide Cloudmark as we continue our growth into new and existing markets.”

Cloudmark’s carrier-grade software solution delivers spam, phishing and virus protection. Through its combination of Advanced Message Fingerprinting technology, real-time feedback from Cloudmark’s Global Threat Network system, traffic analysis and security analysts, Cloudmark detects messaging abuse with up to 99 per cent accuracy.

“We are very pleased to lead this investment in Cloudmark to help support the expansion of the industry’s leading messaging security solution for high-performance networks,” says Greg Goldfarb, a principal with Summit Partners, who will join the Cloudmark board of directors. “At Summit Partners, we have been investing for 25 years in profitable, innovative leaders in the security software industry and it is always rare to find a company that is both a technology leader and service leader. The volume of messaging abuse and security threats continues to skyrocket across wired and wireless networks. Cloudmark’s technology increases the performance, reliability and security of its customers’ messaging infrastructure, while decreasing management costs, and Cloudmark’s service and responsiveness allows its customers to sleep well at night.”