Company: CipherTrust
Description: Security software
Location: Atlanta
Amount of VC raised : $42 million
VC firms: Battery Ventures, Greylock Partners, U.S. Venture Partners, Noro-Moseley Partners, Silicon Valley Bank
VC directors: Thomas Crotty, Asheem Chandna
Exit type: Trade Sale to Secure Computing Corp.
Exit valuation: $274 million
Absolute return: 652%
Memorable quote: "We had looked extensively at the spam sector, where there are probably 40 companies, and came to see the space as a product, not a company," said Battery Ventures general partner Thomas Crotty at the time of the firm's investment in 2004. "As a broader e-mail security company, CipherTrust came at the sector from high ground, securing an enterprise's most critical application."
Memorable awards: Windows & .NET Magazine announced in October 2002 that CipherTrust's IronMail flagship product was one of six finalists in the security category for the Microsoft Exchange Conference Best of Show Awards conducted by the magazine.
Quick take: Patience paid off for Greylock and Battery, who had been waiting to invest in CipherTrust since its establishment in 2000. Their chance came in 2004 when they led the first institutional round of venture capital into the e-mail security software maker. The $42 million round was oversubscribed and priced high but the two VCs stuck with it in order to bet on CipherTrust founder Jay Chaudhry. They'll earn a healthy return (3X?) on the $274 million exit. Demanding $185 million in cash was a particularly savvy move considering that shares of Secure Computing have plummeted 38% this week.

For more on CipherTrusts' sale, see:
Maurene Caplan Grey
The Deal
Twilight in the Valley of the Nerds

Tags: ciphertrust, secure+computing, vc, venture capital