IP Group puts another £3.8m into cybersecurity firm Garrison

(Sharecast News) - Intellectual property-based business developer IP Group said on Monday that its portfolio company Garrison Technology, a specialist provider of "ultra-secure" web browsing technology, has completed a £22.9m fundraising.The FTSE 250 firm said the round was led by new investor Dawn Capital - a technology investor that previously backed Mimecast - with further participation from itself and other existing investors including the BGF and NM Capital.It said the new funds would be used to expand Garrison's sales and marketing activities, to grow the company's engineering team and to enhance the company's 'safe web browsing as a service' cloud offering.Following completion of the financing round, IP Group's undiluted beneficial stake of 23.4% in Garrison would be valued at £28.8m, representing an unrealised fair value gain to the group of £15.2 million.IP Group committed a further £3.8m to Garrison as part of this funding round."Garrison is at the forefront of IT security, with one of the most advanced technologies on the market, and has huge potential for domestic and international expansion," said IP Group technology partner Jon Edington."There is strong demand for Garrison's products and this funding will help support the company's rapid growth in the UK, US and other international markets."The company is led by a top quality, ambitious and commercially minded management team and we look forward to continue working with them."IP Group's board explained that Garrison's unique technology enabled users to access all content on the web without any risk of exposing their organisation to cyber-attack.Instead of relying on a traditional threat detection-based model, it used a "revolutionary technique" to place a gap at the "most fundamental" electronic level between the internet and the end-user's device.That reportedly meant that malicious web content would never come into contact with the user or their organisation's IT systems.Ultra-secure government and military customers were among the first to benefit from the technology, which Garrison said was now being adopted by mainstream commercial organisations due to its affordability and the increasing cyber threat they are facing.