Highway 12 forms tie in Net security – Investment and Partnership with Utah firm aimed at encryption

Highway 12 Ventures http://www.highway12ventures.com/ has invested $750,000 in a software company in Provo, Utah, that helps corporations maintain the safety of their online financial transactions.

This is the seventh investment by the Boise venture capital firm, which has a $27 million fund.

Julie Howard
The Idaho Statesman |

http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040427/NEWS02/404270315/1029

Highway 12’s investment was part of a total $5.2 million in financing for IMCentric http://www.imcentric.com/ , based in Utah. The company partners with Verisign, the world’s leading maker of encryption software for financial transactions.

Here’s how it works: When a company uses Verisign to encrypt its e-commerce site so customers can safely provide credit card information online, that encryption works only for the period contracted by the company. When the time contracted with Verisign expires, the encryption program is no longer in effect.

IMCentric’s software automatically renews the encryption software, thus maintaining its safety features. And it alerts Verisign so that the customer can be billed for its continued use.

"This is the first product of its kind that manages digital certificates," said Mike Mers, a partner at Highway 12. "Large online retailers have hundreds of servers, each with its own certificate, each expiring at different times and dates. When the certificate expires, the server goes down."

Mers said Highway 12 sees large growth potential for the Utah firm.

"These certificates are likely to grow exponentially in the future, and the need for management of these certificates would increase exponentially as well," he said.

Highway 12 focuses on investing in technology companies in Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Washington.