AFORE Secures $6M USD to accelerate Cloud & Cyber Security Strategy - Expands Canadian and US based operations

OTTAWA, June 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ - AFORE Solutions, Inc., a leading provider of cloud security and management solutions, today announced that it has closed a $6M USD financing round from a group of investors led by the BDC Venture Capital IT Fund. AFORE will use the capital to expand the company's marketing, sales and operations capacity to meet growing customer demand, and to accelerate next generation IP and product development.

CloudLink® Secure VSA provides encryption of data at-rest and in-motion in virtualized IT and multi-tenant cloud environments. The CloudLink security solution enables regulatory compliance (HIPAA, PCI, SOX), and delivers comprehensive protection of sensitive data with AES-256 encryption. CloudLink has been designed to work in multi-tenant, private, hybrid and public clouds including VMware's vCloud™, Microsoft Azure™, CA's AppLogic® and Amazon® EC2 and VPC environments.

AFORE is partnering with IT industry leaders including VMware, CA, VCE and has recently joined EMC/RSA Select Partner program to address growing customer demand for protection of sensitive data in virtualized IT infrastructures.

"As cloud computing adoption continues to exceed expectations, AFORE Solutions and its partners have applied CloudLink's unique high performance multi-tenant encryption solution to satisfy security and compliance issues related to Cloud deployments," said Alex Berlin, President and CEO, AFORE Solutions. "With an established and growing global enterprise and cloud service provider customer base, the funding will enable the company to focus on meeting the growing global demand and to accelerate the next generation products ideas."

"Protection of sensitive data is the dominant concern enterprises face regarding the adoption of cloud computing. The traditional methods for securing data are no longer relevant in Cloud Computing and AFORE's CloudLink portfolio perfectly addresses this concern," said Ron Warburton, Managing Partner at  BDC Venture Capital IT Fund. "Our investment in AFORE Solutions is consistent with our belief that intelligent security solutions will play a critical role in the adoption and growth of Cloud Computing."

"The amount of data in public and private Clouds is growing at an astronomical rate. Our strategy and vision for securing this data has been validated by key partners VCE™, EMC™, CA™ , Cisco™ and RSA™ and by our early adopter customers in healthcare, financial,  F500, government and Cloud Service Providers. This investment will help accelerate that strategy and vision for the CloudLink portfolio of security software solutions," stated Jonathan Reeves, Chairman and CSO of AFORE Solutions, who is driving the company's product and marketing strategy.

About AFORE Solutions Inc.

AFORE Solutions is a leader in cloud security and management. AFORE's CloudLink® software security appliance combines cloud infrastructure security and manageability with cloud performance monitoring.  Enterprises and cloud service providers use CloudLink to protect mission critical data in motion and at rest while managing SLA's for security compliance and service performance. For more information visit: www.aforesolutions.com.

CloudLink® and AFORE are registered trademarks of AFORE Solutions, Inc.  Any other brands and products referenced herein are acknowledged to be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

About the BDC VC IT Fund
The BDC Venture Capital IT Fund is a $150 million fund with offices in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Calgary as well as strong linkages to Silicon Valley. Investments are typically early stage companies in the enterprise, Internet and mobile sectors. The fund has invested in many successful companies including Layer 7 (acquired by CA Technologies), Radian6 (acquired by Salesforce), Opalis (acquired by Microsoft), Bycast (acquired by NetApp) and Q1 Labs (acquired by IBM).

About BDC Venture Capital
With more than $1 billion under management and more than 25 years of industry experience, BDC Venture Capital is an investor of choice focusing on IT, health, and energy/clean technology companies, as well as venture funds, with high growth potential. From seed through expansion to exit, our mandate is to help build outstanding Canadian companies, while working to create a sound financial ecosystem for Canadian technology ventures. Find out more at www.bdc.ca/vc or on Twitter @BDC_VC.

SOURCE AFORE Solutions Inc.