SEP leads way in £5m Metaforic fund raising

Metaforic, a software security firm with bases in Glasgow and San Jose, has raised £5 million from investors led by venture capital outfit Scottish Equity Partners (SEP).

SEP joins original backers - Pentech Ventures, the Scottish Investment Bank's venture fund and employees - as investors in the firm, which will use the cash to expand its international sales and marketing activity.

Stuart Paterson, a partner at SEP, said: "We are very confident in the growth prospects for Metaforic. It has a very strong management team, which has succeeded in this space before.

"Its products serve an urgent need for games companies and enterprise software businesses to deploy software solutions that prevent loss of revenue through piracy, or need the reassurance that their software has been hardened against cyber attack."

Paterson expects the firm, which was founded in 2006, to be profitable in the near future.

The company, a spin out from the former Scottish Enterprise-backed Intermediate Technology Institute (ITI), was founded by Andrew McLennan, Neil Stewart and Linda Mackellar.

Last year, it appointed chairman Bill Krepick and chief executive Dan Stickel, who previously led Nasdaq-listed IP-protection firm Macrovision.

Stickel said: "We are pleased to add such a successful firm as SEP to our investor group and pleased that our previously existing investors have all participated in this round as well.

"Our customers tend to be somewhat shy about the security technologies they use, but some of the biggest names in the industry are now using Metaforic."

Earlier this year, SEP made a multi-million-pound return on the landmark $1 billion (616m) sale of BioVex to Amgen.