Sonoa Systems Raises $10 Million Series C Financing

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwire - October 15, 2008) - Sonoa Systems, Inc., an innovative provider of secure cloud gateways, today announced the closing of a $10 million Series C round of funding. This round is led by Third Point Ventures, the venture capital arm of Third Point LLC; and joins current investors Norwest Venture Partners, Bay Partners and SAP Ventures, a division of SAP AG. Sonoa will use the financing to expand sales, marketing and product development efforts.

"This round of funding firmly validates Sonoa's technology and business strategy," said Chet Kapoor, CEO of Sonoa Systems. "The new investment will support and extend the capabilities of Sonoa's cloud gateway to address the growing need for businesses to provide and use cloud services now by making them secure, compliant, fast, and work with the existing IT. The market momentum Sonoa has gained clearly demonstrates the industry's demand for solutions that solve the critical issues organizations face when opening Web services to large numbers of diverse customers."

Separately today, Sonoa named Robert Schwartz, managing partner at Third Point Ventures, to its board of directors. Schwartz brings a wealth of distinguished leadership experience and expertise in growing businesses that bring new technologies to enterprises.

"Sonoa provides the technology backbone to drive a new wave of cloud scale computing," said Schwartz. "The company is well-positioned to take advantage of the massive market shift to Web-based computing and the clear need for secure cloud gateways. This additional funding will help Sonoa's excellent team build on the strong momentum it has already generated with acquisition of new customers, development of new product offerings and increased marketing efforts."

Sonoa ServiceNet is designed from the ground up for the unique challenges of customer-facing Web services, employing a network router-like architecture that lets businesses free their APIs to the cloud to increase customer value, reduce costs and innovate faster. By handling the access control, teams can ensure maximum performance and scalability in the environment, making it easy to create new products and add new users and services. Sonoa ServiceNet is available as a network or virtual appliance.

About Third Point Ventures

Third Point Ventures is the venture capital arm of Third Point LLC, a registered investment adviser based in New York, with approximately $5 billion of assets under management. The firm was founded in 1995 by Daniel S. Loeb. Third Point Ventures is led by Robert Schwartz, an industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience in private equity and technology company management, and is based in Sunnyvale, California.

About Sonoa Systems

Sonoa Systems provides a secure cloud gateway that solves critical security, compliance, performance and interoperability challenges for enterprises that are providing or using cloud-based business applications. Leading customers such as Pfizer, Warner Music, and Intralinks use Sonoa to create new revenue channels, reduce costs, and innovate faster. The company is based in Santa Clara, CA, privately held, and backed by leading investors including Norwest Venture Partners, Bay Partners, and SAP Ventures. For more see www.sonoasystems.com.

Contact Information: Media Contact: LaunchSquad +1 (415) 625-8555 sonoa@launchsquad.com