Datacastle Raised $5.3 Million

Datacastle Corporation, the enterprise-class PC data protection company, announced its second round of financing, as well as the appointments of CEO Ronald Faith and Chairman of the Board Alex Knight. Led by CM Capital Investments, Datacastle’s $5.3 million Series A financing augments the company’s initial seed financing of July 2007.

Founded in 2005, Datacastle has a singular mission to help organizations simply and cost effectively protect data against loss and laptop theft. Listed in Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Storage Technologies, 2008, Datacastle offers the most comprehensive and secure data protection solutions available for today’s mobile workforce.

“Datacastle is well positioned at a time when enterprises are rapidly adopting data protection solutions to secure, manage and control their critical data,” said Mark Gill, Partner, CM Capital Investments. “We are pleased to add Datacastle to our investment portfolio based on their differentiated data protection solutions, their intellectual property which provides inherent barriers to entry, and substantial market opportunities. We believe that Datacastle’s talented management team has the skill, drive and enthusiasm to take the company to a market leadership position.”

Datacastle’s newly appointed CEO, Ronald Faith, was formerly Chief Operating Officer at Clonefone, Inc., a provider of web-based services for mobile network operators and OEMs. Prior to joining Clonefone, Faith spent over 8 years at Qpass where he held senior leadership positions in sales, business development, and product management during the company’s growth from a nascent start-up to the market leader in mobile commerce infrastructure.

Newly appointed Datacastle Chairman of the Board Alex Knight is currently Chief Executive Officer of Edge Labs, an investment management and strategic advisory firm, and was formerly a Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners, a venture capital firm managing over $1.5 billion in assets. Prior to joining ARCH, Knight was an executive at Microsoft and News Corporation in addition to helping found several companies. His previous board work includes Dantz Software (purchased by EMC) and Classmates (purchased by United Online).

Datacastle’s founding CEO, Gary Sumner, will assume the role of Chief Technology Officer, continuing to drive Datacastle’s innovative vision.

“I am very pleased that Ron Faith has joined Datacastle as our new CEO,” said Sumner. “Ron brings to Datacastle his vast experience in growing early stage companies and building world-class management teams. Ron and Alex will lead Datacastle during a time when the interest in data protection is on the rise and Datacastle has an industry-leading solution.”

Datacastle intends to leverage its latest financing and new leadership to capitalize on the rapidly growing data protection segment by offering the industry’s most simple, secure, comprehensive and cost-effective suite of data protection technologies. Datacastle delivers ‘Data Protection Evolved’ by integrating five powerful components into one integrated solution with the strongest security available in data protection for the mobile workforce. Datacastle’s comprehensive data protection software integrates continuous online backup, robust AES encryption standards, automated key management, proactive data deletion and unrivalled data reduction into a single solution. Datacastle’s comprehensive data protection software is available through leading systems integrators and managed service providers worldwide.

"The top issue facing businesses today is securing and protecting corporate data. Our membership of over 7,000 Managed Service Providers (MSPs) seeks out best of breed technologies to address these needs, providing their customers innovative solutions with exceptional return on investment," said Charles Weaver, Co-Founder and President of MSPAlliance. "The data protection market is growing rapidly with numerous entrants providing niche offerings that typically only solve one of many security challenges. Datacastle’s integrated approach to data protection addresses the growing demands of MSPs and enterprises who seek a single, comprehensive, cost-effective solution to the complex issues associated with securing valuable desktop and mobile PC data."