Mobile security company Lookout may be all about protecting user’s devices and offering people more privacy, but today it’s raising its own profile a little bit more. The startup is announcing another $55 million in funding, led by strategic investor Deutsche Telekom, parent of T-Mobile. This will be used to help the company keep building out its service in Europe and other international markets, as well as towards the growth and launch of its enterprise services, specifically Lookout for Business later this year.
All of this will go towards the company’s bigger ambition to become the Symantec of the mobile world, with the company already serving some 45 million people.
Other big names in the round included Qualcomm Ventures, Greylock Partners and Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management, as well as existing investors Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, and Khosla Ventures. It takes the total raised by the company to $131 million.
DT is not the first carrier to take the lead in a Lookout round. In December 2012, France Telecom invested “up to” $20 million in the company and inked a deal to preload Lookout’s software on its Android devices. At the time we noted that Deutsche Telekom, as well as Verizon, were already key partners of the startup.
Interestingly, at that time, Lookout was still touting its services as a non-enterprise offering, and Xavier Perret, VP of partnerships for Orange, calling it specifically a “consumer play.” Clearly, enterprise customers not only widen the opportunity for Lookout to gain more business, but businesses — with more sensitive, and often commercial requirements around data — have been some of the most natural customers for mobile security solutions. It also opens the door to Lookout extending into other cloud offerings that bring in devices beyond mobile handsets and tablets — these two, with their reduced on-device storage space — are natural complements to cloud services, but of course the potential for this can extend to other end points like laptops and whatever other hardware a business or consumer might use.
Lookout’s security platform is based around a “mobile threat dataset,” that it uses to weed out potentially harmful viruses, worms and so on, which has proven to be a problem particularly on Android devices. It’s also based on a collective, big data approach that improves as more people sign up. “As more people and devices connect to the network, Lookout’s platform becomes more intelligent, providing a safer experience for everyone,” the company notes.
As with Telefonica’s deal earlier today to offer a Pinterest widget on Android handsets, this is also a story about a carrier looking for an edge over competitors by offering a special service. Germany has been a particularly strong guardian of consumer rights on the internet and this goes also in the realm of mobile services.
“With the huge uptake of smartphone penetration, the ‘security for mobile devices’ topic has become much more important. It’s critical that we offer services that our customers trust,” said Heikki Mäkijärvi, SVP global strategic partnerships Deutsche Telekom, in a statement. “Lookout’s experience in developing leading-edge security applications for this new dynamic environment makes them the ideal partner for us in this category of device solutions. By partnering with Lookout, we’re investing in the future of mobile to make sure it’s a delightful, secure experience for everyone.”
This is also behind the interests of other investors. “We like to sponsor technologies that can reset established markets,” said Peter Thiel, Mithril’s investment committee chairman, in a statement. “Ajay Royan and I see Lookout connecting three platforms crucial to the future of computing: mobile, big data, and security. We were really impressed by Lookout’s leadership as well as their mobile security expertise and their data-driven approach to security positions.”
We’re hopefully speaking with the company in a bit and will update as we learn more.
