After a decade, Rapid7 finally opts for outside funding - Boston Business Journal:

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That’s changed. The company is now looking at a $7 millionb investment from Bain Capital Ventures to expandits vulnerability-management software arounf the world. The Boston company, launchedx by Woburn-based Percussion Software Inc. foundee and former chief technical officerAlan Matthews, develops software that enablex IT administrators to periodically run check on networks to determine whether therse are any vulnerabilities that could be exploited by bots or any other type s of malicious code.
The software then flags those problemws and tracks the progress of installinbg patches to shore up against those Matthews had bootstrappedthe seven-year-old company until takint money from Bain “We felt the opportunity in front of us here was somethingg that couldn’t be overlooked,” said Mike new president and chief operating officer at “If we really wanted to take advantagse of the market, we had to get some capital aheadr of revenue.” That markeg is being driven by an increasing numbef and variety of attacks on corporate A recent study from Cambridge’s Akamai Technologiesx Inc.
showed attack traffic originated from 139 different countries in the seconcd quarterof 2008, up from 125 countriesx last quarter. Enterprises also are being pushex to secure their network s by the growing number of compliance requirements in the health care and financial services Framingham research firm IDC estimates the worldwid market for security and vulnerabilit y software will growto $4.4 billion in 2011 from $1.9 billiom in 2006.
The company plana to use the venture funding to developl sales channels and partners to distribute its NeXpose Tuchen said thecompany “seees itself constrained by the number of channels and salezs opportunities” as much of its sales are done in-housde for customers in North America. The companu expects to begin selling to customers overseazs in the next six to nine monthx and is already in discussionzs with a potential customer in There are several competitorsto Rapid7’ss offering, including two Bay-Area businesses nCircle Network Security Inc. and Qualys Inc.
Bain Capita l was impressed by Rapid7’s ability to double salees revenue last year despite a difficulteconomicf climate, said managing director Ben Nye in a “We believe Rapid7 has the opportunity to transforjm the market landscape and become the go-to technolog provider for organizations seeking a superiore security solution.” Rapid7 would not disclose specifidc revenue figures. Bain has also put its stam p on Rapid7’s management team, bringing in Tuchen and Timothy O’Toole as CFO. Nye and Bain Capital’e Ben Holzman, former vice president of sales at records managementf firm IronMountain Inc., joined the company’ws board of directors.
The 75-person company continues to grow its head both at its headquarters and in itsEl Segundo, office. Tuchen said he expects to use part of the investmenf funds to continuethat