French Qosmos gets € 19,8 mill. to fund global growth

Qosmos (Paris, France) has closed a €19.8 Million (US $28.5 Million) financing deal. The deal was co-led by leading European venture firm DFJ Esprit, Fonds Stratégique d’Investissements (FSI) and Alven Capital.

The deal is a combination of primary equity and debt plus a secondary purchase of former investor Sofinnova’s stake in the company by the three named companies. As new investors, Krishna Visvanathan, Partner of DFJ Esprit, and a representative from FSI will join Qosmos’ board of directors.

The investment will support Qosmos’ expansion in the North America and Asia-Pacific regions, fuel its product development and global marketing efforts, as well as fund potential acquisitions. Profitable since 2009, Qosmos revenues increased 40% in 2010.

Qosmos is a provider of Network Intelligence (NI) software based on Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). Its ixEngine product delivers visibility into data crossing wireless networks by identifying, extracting and querying specific information. Such information is critical for communications, business and security applications, such as network traffic optimization, policy management, service assurance, market research and network and data security. Qosmos’ customers are Network Equipment Providers, Software Vendors and Systems Integrators in the telecom, networking and cybersecurity markets who embed Qosmos NI technology to better manage, track and monetize the massive increases in business and consumer network data transactions.

Qosmos is enjoying double-digit revenue growth for the last six years, earning several awards from leading business and technical organizations and establishing two new industry organizations in the last year—the Network Intelligence Alliance and the Qosmos Expert Developer Network.  In addition, Qosmos CEO Thibaut Bechetoille has been named as a delegate to represent France at the G20 Young Entrepreneurs Summit (G20 YES) later this year.

Thibaut Bechetoille, President and CEO of Qosmos, said, “This investment is the result of the momentum the company has seen building over the last several years, and is tremendous validation of our horizontal component technology strategy, OEM business model and vision to become the leading independent “pure play” vendor of Network Intelligence technology. We look forward to working with our new partners as we accelerate the growth of the company internationally, meet demand for advanced DPI capabilities among solution and equipment providers and explore new use cases for Network Intelligence technology in the telecom, enterprise and cybersecurity markets.”

Krishna Visvanathan, Partner at DFJ Esprit, commented, “We are excited to be investing in Qosmos, a world leader in Network Intelligence technology, and working with its seasoned management team. DFJ Esprit has had success of investing in the network intelligence space including security, optimization and application acceleration, and we see Qosmos as a great addition to our portfolio in this space. We look forward to helping Qosmos drive their expansion further in the US and Asia through the leverage we bring to bear from DFJ’s global network of funds in both regions.”

Qosmos’ previous round of financing was in 2008, with investment from Alven Capital, GfK and others.

Source: Qosmos