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Background

In the 21st century the core processes of a company rely on electronic communications, Web applications and services, like e-banking platforms. Intelligent IT security technologies provide effective protection against today's dynamic threats. These technologies ensure that relevant communication processes are not disrupted by hacker attacks or incidents such as construction damage and even natural disasters.

With its portfolio of security products for the Enterprise and Mid market, phion protects all business-critical communications, services and processes against threats while at the same time keeping information available for those who need it and who can be trusted with it. With its powerful and cost-effective IT security and connectivity solutions for enterprise customers phion AG established itself as a leading European IT security solution provider.

phion - The Success Story

The company’s success story began when Wieland Alge, Klaus Gheri and Peter Marte founded phion in 2000. What started as the brainchild of three young and dedicated physicists soon developed into a successful company providing enterprise security solutions for a steadily growing customer portfolio.

One of phion’s breakthrough projects was the implementation of Europe’s largest firewall of the day. This project was realized for Allgemeines Rechenzentrum, a company which provides specialized IT services to banks, hospitals and central administration offices in Austria. For this project phion completely developed a cutting-edge design that for the first time enabled the configuration and management of over 500 firewalls from a central location by a staff of just 2 people.

phion netfence was introduced in 2001 to address the needs of large and medium-sized companies who require intelligent and powerful IT security solutions that offer the highest standards of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their network infrastructure.

In 2002 phion completed a milestone with the advancement of firewall technology to the netfence gateways. This also marked a paradigm shift in the network security industry: the focus was no longer on maximizing security only but also the availability of business-critical processes.

In two financing rounds in 2002 and 2005 phion raised money from Capexit, an Austrian Private Equity Group. phion used the raised capital to further its expansion in Europe, with a main focus on Germany and Switzerland. The company went public in July 2007. This was the first IPO on the Vienna Stock Exchange’s new mid market. Phion is listed on the regulated semi-official market since 4th July.

In June 2008, phion acquired Visonys, a Swiss provider of IT security products for web applications and services. With the acquisition of Visonys, phion complements and expands its enterprise product portfolio. Customers, partners and employees benefit from new opportunities and advantages created by close co-operations throughout the enterprise . The acquisition also strengthens phion’s market position in the field of network security.

Milestones & Key Facts

Milestones

2009
Barracuda Networks, Inc. becomes majority shareholder 2008
phion acquires Swiss Visonys 2007
phion netfence receives EAL4+ certification Expansion to Central Europe and Italy July: the phion share is listed on Vienna Stock Exchange (Wiener Boerse - mid market). 2005
Second round financing with Capexit Expansion to Switzerland 2004
Expansion to Germany 2003
netfence 2.4 with Traffic Intelligence 2002
Release netfence gateways 2.0 IBM Global Services & IDS Scheer become phion Premium Partners First round financing with Capexit, a private equity group 2000
2000 phion is founded Implementation of Europe's largest firewall project to date (more than 500 firewalls) for the 'Allgemeines Rechenzentrum' (ARZ) phion receives Tyrolean Young Entrepreneur Award Co-founding of icoserve information technologies GmbH, a leading provider of image and document management solutions for the healthcare sector ( www.icoserve.com )