$5m funding boost for anti-hacking company

By SIMON HENDERY

Start-up company Esphion says it has raised $5 million to develop its technology products, which include anti-hacking software.

Esphion employs 16 staff and is based at Massey University's Albany campus eCentre a business incubator which is home to eight companies. Its new funding was led by TMT Ventures, a $150 million fund partially paid for by Telecom.

The company has also secured further funding from its existing investors, Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall and the New Zealand Seed Fund which he backs.

Esphion's focus is computer network protection and improving bandwidth management.

Its first product, netDeFlect, offers protection against denial-of-service attacks, where hackers crash websites by bombarding them with information requests.

"The capital and access to key corporates that TMT Ventures provides us is a key step in implementing our sales strategy," said Esphion chief executive Johnny Cates.

NetDeFlect was selected to be presented as a cyber war defence solution at the Joint Warrior Inter-operability Demonstration (JWID) in April.

JWID involved the armed forces from the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Esphion was the only private company to demonstrate its technology.

Cates said the company was continuing talks with the US military and had also had interest from an Asian defence facility.

"Part of this capital raising round is to grow our sales and marketing strategic arm which will escalate those relationships."