ATEL Growth Capital (“AGC”) is pleased to announce that Defense.net, an
ATEL Growth Capital portfolio company, has been acquired by F5 Networks,
Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV). F5 Networks, a provider of application delivery
networking products, has agreed to acquire Defense.net for an unspecified
amount. The acquisition will bolster F5’s internet security technology and
products. As an early venture lender to Defense.net, the ATEL Funds
provided the company with an asset collateralized loan. As part of the loan
terms ATEL was also provided warrants that are exercisable to purchase
shares of Defense.net.“This landmark year is shaping up to be one of AGC’s best,” said Steve Rea,
Executive Vice President at ATEL. “The consistent due diligence and
investment philosophy we have at ATEL are providing significant returns to
the ATEL Funds as many of our portfolio companies are experiencing exit
events. ATEL is proud to partner with Defense.net and is confident that its
acquisition will help improve our security over the internet.”Defense.net, based in Belmont, CA is a developer of a cloud-based defense
system to prevent distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks from
shutting down online sites. With increasing threats from the escalating
scale and complexity of DDoS attacks and a growing number of antagonists
willing to use them, Defense.Net has been able to position itself as a
premier provider of these security services. F5 Networks, Inc. provides
solutions for the “Application world”. F5 helps organizations seamlessly
scale cloud, data center, and software defined networking (SDN) deployments
to successfully deliver applications to anyone, anywhere, at any time. F5
solutions broaden the reach of IT through an open, extensible framework and
a rich partner ecosystem of leading technology and data center
orchestration vendors.