Financial services firm Santander made a strategic investment in Switzerland-based enterprise privacy technology provider Silent Circle on Friday to lead its $50m series C round.
Silent Circle has built a suite of privacy software, services, devices and encrypted calling plans dubbed Enterprise Privacy Platform. It intends to use the series C funding to support product development, business development, customer service, marketing and paying off its debt.
Matt Neiderman, Silent Circle’s interim CEO and general counsel, said: “We will use our new funding to bring even more first-to-market capabilities that deliver convenient and compliant enterprise communications with uncompromising security standards.”
The round increased Silent Circle’s total funding to about $130m, and comes after it secured $50m from undisclosed backers in February 2015. Cain Capital and individual investor Ross Perot Jr were among the participants in its $30m series A round nine months before.
The company’s technology is used by businesses in a variety of industries, including pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and energy, but also accounting, consulting and any sector where secrecy is crucial, and could hypothetically make a good fit as part of a bank’s product offering for corporate customers.
Antony Barker, a managing director of Santander Bank, said: “We all run our work and personal lives from our mobile devices.
“That makes secure mobile communications an absolute must-have for a rapidly expanding number of companies, governments and individuals.”