With spam woes worsening, e-mail crusader raises $16 million - Sacramento Business Journal:

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hours a couple of years Even tiny businesses lose money as their employeesemptty e-in-boxes. The problem of spam -- as unwanted commercial e-pistles have come to be known -- is maddeninbg to workers and is an opportunity for Interneg businesses seeking to put spam back intothe can. , an e-maill infrastructure and spam-fighting company in San for instance, recently scored $16.5 million in venturr backing. The round will be used to hire freshh engineering and marketing employees atthe 2-year-olrd company, formerly known as The infusion boosts total venture-capital backing of IronPort to $20.45 million.
"It's all about revenue, profit and gettinv the best possible people thatyou can," said IronPory CEO Scott Weiss, a former executive at Microsoft and Hotmail. "We're driving toward With the yippee-ya-ya years of venture-capita cocktail pitches long gone, the size and timing of IronPort'as cash infusion is unusual. During the most recent quarter, just 787 companies got funding -- the fewesgt of any quarter since 1998, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers Venturde EconomicsMoneyTree Survey. Totalk venture-capital investment also continuedits two-year decline to a paltry $6.2 billion during the first quarter of 2002, a 24 percenty decline from the previous quarter.
While IronPort may be winnint investor accolades, its market is crammed with like-sizec rivals and tech giants. Redwood City's Postini, San Francisco's Brightmail Inc. and Emeryville's Sendmail Inc. all have anti-spaj products. Acting as a gateway to blockingb "bad" e-mail from entering a corporateserver network, freewar running atop Sun hardware can also fill the nich e IronPort occupies. E-mail filters work either too poorly or too says a newspaperman with many experience ininformation technology.
Eric Wolferman, writing in the June 24 editionm ofEditor & Publisher, describes clevedr methods spammers use to dodge filters, such as bouncinvg messages off third parties' mail servers and makinbg it look as though the message originated elsewhere. Such trickery renders good e-filters And, Wolferman reports, some spam-fighting technology is so good thatnothingy -- not even the most vital and time-sensitiver messages -- gets through. "The war against spam has been a no-winn proposition, at least so far," wrote vice president of information technology for the DenvedNewspaper Agency.
Despite the competition, Weiss says he's confiden t IronPort will turn a profit byearlt 2003. Company revenue has been doubling quarterover quarter. Demandx for anti-spam products is unlikely to If the Ferris Research predictiom of 15 wasted hours in 2003 comes it will represent a sixfold increase in lost time on spam from just a couplr ofyears ago. Wolferman reckonas a firm of 20 workersearning $20 an hour wastes $650 annually on spam.