Global Velocity readies to launch data security product next year

May 1, 2007

By Rachel Melcer
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Global Velocity Inc. says it is months away from launching a product that promises to help corporations keep their secrets hidden and their customers' data secure.

Its technology is a hardware box that sits within a computer network, scanning data transmissions in real time to find and, if required, stop the movement of confidential information. This can range from copyrighted music files to health care records and Social Security numbers to product price lists.

"Our team is very excited. It's a very energetic place right now because they realize we're about to release something that could be very significant," said Global Velocity Chief Executive Greg Sullivan.

The company recently graduated to a Clayton office suite from the Technology Entrepreneur Center, an information-technology business incubator downtown. Friends, family and "angel" investors just contributed $4 million in private venture capital to fuel Global Velocity through final product development and early marketing efforts.

Global Velocity, which last month expanded to 15 employees, hopes to provide a good return for its investors as well as the St. Louis economy, he said.

"We're here and we're hiring people and we're creating wealth," Sullivan said. Sullivan's last company, IT consulting firm G.A. Sullivan, was a local star of the dot-com boom before being sold in 2003 for an undisclosed amount to Avanade Inc., a joint venture between Microsoft Corp. and Accenture Ltd.

Global Velocity was founded in 2000 to commercialize technology developed at Washington University by John Lockwood, an associate professor of science and engineering.

Companies and government entities are finding that most confidential data leaks accidentally, rather than maliciously, by employees who send, save, or print files they don't realize they shouldn't be moving, according to a recent report by Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn.-based IT research firm.

As a result, they need technology that can define restricted material and scan for it on all outbound data traffic - including e-mail, instant messages, Internet postings and streaming media, the report said.

"This is about managing your people and your content. People get fired over these kinds of (leaks), or even go to jail," said Rich Mogull, a Gartner research vice president focused on information security and risk.

Global Velocity is behind the market in introducing this type of technology, he said. Software solutions have been sold for a few years and companies such as Vontu Inc., Vericept Corp. and Websense Inc. are emerging as leaders, he said.

Yet Global Velocity is unique in offering a hardware product that sits within a network and can handle data transmission speeds of 10 gigabits per second, Sullivan said.

It also is capable of identifying broken bits of data hidden within subsequent transmissions, putting it back together and acting on a security breach - all without slowing down the network's flow of legitimate and important information.

"It's all about processing power. If you have enough, you can control anything," Sullivan said.

Having that level of speed is particularly important to Internet network and service providers, such as Town and Country-based Savvis Inc. That company is helping Global Velocity hone its product, but has not said it will become a customer.

Bryan Doerr, Savvis' chief technology officer, said his company is interested in offering content monitoring and filtering as a service to its customers. Because Savvis manages many different companies' Internet traffic at once, it needs more horsepower than most individual corporations - and hasn't yet found an ideal solution.

"There is plenty of room for new entrants, for new solutions, for neat variations on the theme that will create opportunities for startups like Global Velocity," he said.

Over the next year or so, this type of offering for a network company like Savvis will be "an icing on the cake capability," Doerr said. But it could become an important competitive advantage that will drive demand for Savvis' network, he added.

Global Velocity will conduct pilot tests with up to three multi-national corporations by early fall, Sullivan said. If all goes well, the product should launch commercially in the first quarter of 2008.

The CEO would like to move as fast as his hardware.

"It's a topic of great interest right now," he said. "Every corporation we've talked to has had either a breach or a scare of critical importance to them" and wants to better protect its information.