Speedy security experts on fast track to growth

The Skipton-based technology firm has pioneered a network security box –"the fastest on the planet" – which it believes could revolutionise networking for businesses across the globe.

Syphan, which was founded in 2006, recently completed two commercial trials and is now in talks with more than 40 companies about prospective orders.

The firm, launched by networking expert Pravin Mirchandani, believes that commercialising its technology over the next three months will allow it to expand its 12-strong workforce to up to 70 staff.

Its security box protects networks from cyber attacks, while allowing them to operate at up to 10 gigabytes per second.

By processing and scanning data in parallel to the network, it allows networks to operate much faster than conventional systems.

Syphan's box also has the capacity to simultaneously security check data of up to 500 companies at once. It believes this should prove hugely popular with outsourced network providers, which host networks for small and medium-sized enterprises.

"For large organisations, the need to shift data goes up exponentially all the time," said Syphan chief executive Pravin Mirchandani.

"We can protect the 10Gb pipe, introducing a range of measures that all stop attacks. It allows them to run them the full 10Gb so that they can get the maximum value from their network."

Cyber crime has rocketed during the recession, with US internet crime loss complaints almost doubling in value from $265m in 2008 to $560m last year, according figures from the Internet Crime Complaint Center. Online security expert Garlik last year reported online banking fraud in the UK has increased by 132 per cent year-on-year, with overall cyber crime up by four per cent since 2007.

While many networks are built to run at speeds of 10Gb per second, the reality is far slower, with security systems such as firewalls and denial of service protection sometimes dragging networks down to 2Gb. "It's wasted capacity," said Mr Mirchandani.

Syphan believes its technology will prove attractive despite the recession because of the potential savings it offers. The company is in talks with 44 companies over potential orders. The box will cost about $145,000 (97,000) and has so far proved popular at trade shows around the world.

"When a customer wants to get security from their hosting provider the service provider has to deliver a box and dedicate that box to the customer," said Mr Mirchandani.

"From a service provider's perspective, that's not very economic. We can do 500 customers from one box. For service providers the return on investment can be extremely dramatic."

Syphan's two recent commercial trials were "extremely successful", according to Mr Mirchandani. One was a UK-based storage network for SMEs and the other a video network, both requiring huge transfers of data.

"We removed the bottleneck from the network," he said. "They ran at the maximum of their 10Gb networks – that's the fastest security box on the planet."

The firm is now about three months away from selling its first boxes, and has ambitious growth plans.

"This is a pivotal year for us," said Mr Mirchandani. "Within the first year we expect to sell at least 100 of these boxes, then for two to three years to grow at 300 to 400 per cent.

"I believe we can build up over the next four years to generate revenues of 35 to 50m."

It is close to sealing 1m funding and expects to soon raise another tranche of up to 8m.

Syphan is backed by regional venture capital houses Yorkshire and Humber Equity Fund and Partnership Investment Finance. It won a research grant in 2006 from Yorkshire Forward and has received a total of 1.8m investment so far.

Hopes high for awards

Syphan Technologies has been named as finalist in three categories for this year's SC Europe Awards.

The SC Awards, a high-profile event for the IT security sector run by SC Magazine, draws entries from major internet security firms across Europe.

The Syphan's ITC220 security box has been shortlisted for Best Network Security Solution, Best Integrated Network Security Solution and Best Secure Virtualisation

Previous winners include some of the biggest names from the computer security world such as McAfee, Sophos and Websense.

The SC Awards winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on April 27.