Astaro Raises $6.7M in Venture Capital

ASTARO RAISES $6.7 MILLION IN SECOND ROUND VENTURE
FUNDING

New York-based Insight Venture Partners team up again
with Munich-based Wellington Partners

BURLINGTON, Mass. – May 17, 2004 – Astaro Corp.,
developers of the most popular Open Source-based
security product, today announced it has raised a
Series B round of $6.7 million from co-investors
Insight Venture Partners of New York and Wellington
Partners of Munich, Germany. The same group of
investors co-led the company’s Series A round of $6.2
million in May 2003, bringing the total amount raised
to date to $12.9 million.

Funding will be used to further accelerate the rapid
adoption of Astaro’s all-in-one network security
solution, which combines rock-solid firewall protection
with a VPN gateway, anti virus protection, and other
critical security features, within the enterprise
market; to leverage and extend the global Channel
Partner program, and to apply customer-driven product
enhancements.

“Over the past 12 months we tripled our revenues,” said
Jan Hichert, Astaro CEO and co-founder. “Customers are
seeing the value and cost advantages of running a
comprehensive Linux-based network security solution.
Our next step calls for carrying this momentum further
out into the more profitable and larger scale
enterprise sector.”

“Astaro’s market penetration has been phenomenal. Since
its founding in January 2000 it has grown to the point
that it now protects some 20,000 networks,” said Frank
Boehnke, partner, Wellington Partners. “You can’t argue
with success. Linux is clearly here to stay and Astaro
is clearly the leader in the network security space.
They are the most popular solution out there, namely
because their product offers the security and the
features companies want, it’s easy to support and at a
fraction of the cost of purely proprietary systems.” 

Astaro’s existing Board of Directors consists of
Stanley Krasnow, formerly with IBM; Dr. Peter Levin,
formerly with the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy; Michael Triplett from Insight
Venture Partners; and Patrick Meininger from Wellington
Partners.

In March, Astaro rolled out Version 5 of its flagship
product Astaro Security Linux, a network security
solution that combines firewall protection with a VPN
Gateway, Anti Virus protection, and other advanced
security features. Astaro Security Linux protects more
than 20,000 networks in over 60 countries.
Additionally, Version 5  includes Intrusion Protection
capabilities that protect networks against complex
attacks, and added Virus Protection for HTTP and FTP.

About Wellington Partners
Formed in 1991, Wellington Partners invests venture
capital in young start-ups throughout Europe in the
fields of information and communication technology and
life science and numbers among Europe’s most successful
early-stage financiers. The Munich-based company today
manages a total fund volume of €265 million, with €85
million of this funding available for new investments.
Wellington Partners is presently invested in over 20
companies and has accompanied technology vendors such
as chip broker ACG and biotech player Actelion in going
public. http://www.wellington.de.

About Insight Venture Partners
Insight Venture Partners, with approximately $1
billions in funds under management, is the leading
venture capital firm specializing in enterprise
software companies.  Insight invests in entrepreneurial
companies developing technology-based solutions for the
corporate enterprise.  Headquartered in New York,
Insight has taken a global approach to e-commerce
investing in a market where speed, domain expertise,
and the ability to execute are the foundations of
success.  http://www.insightpartners.com.

About Astaro
Astaro is the developer of Astaro Security Linux, a
comprehensive network security product for midsized to
large businesses. It combines a firewall, VPN gateway,
intrusion protection, virus protection, spam protection
and surf protection (URL filtering). This complete
software solution bundles a hardened Linux operating
system that can run on any x86-compatible hardware, and
is also available as a pre-installed appliance
solution. Astaro's software has won numerous awards,
and is in use on over 20,000 networks in 60 countries.
Astaro Security Linux is distributed by a worldwide
network of solutions partners who offer local support
and services. http://www.astaro.com

# # #

U.S. Press Contact: 
Victor Cruz
+1 508 785 1590
vcruz@astaro.com

Germany Press Contact:
Heiko Scholz
+49 6451 715105
hscholz@astaro.com