BlackSpider Technologies Limited was a British software company founded in 2002 and subsequently acquired by SurfControl in July 2006.
| BlackSpider Technologies Limited | |
| Industry: | software |
| Successor: | SurfControl (July 2006) |
| Founded: | 2002 |
| Founder: | John Cheney |
| Hq Location: | Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom |
| Services: | cloud computing services: * email spam * malware |
The Company provided cloud computing services for filtering email spam and other malware.
BlackSpider was a start-up company founded in 2002 by John Cheney[1] in Reading, Berkshire, UK.
In January 2004 Casenove Private Equity invested £4.6m ($6.6m) in the business,[2] allowing the organisation to grow into the French and German markets.
In July 2006 SurfControl, a UK listed PLC, acquired BlackSpider for £19.5m in cash.[3]
At the point of acquisition BlackSpider had £4m in historic revenues, an operating loss of £3.1m and over 1,200 customers.[4]
In October 2007 Websense acquired SurfControl for approximately £204m.[5]
Following the acquisition of SurfControl by Websense, the original BlackSpider Management Team, including John Cheney, left to found Workbooks.com, a provider of web-based CRM software for small businesses.[6]
MailControl was the brand name for BlackSpider Technologies email filtering services. These products are now sold by Forcepoint under the brand name Hosted Email Security.[7]