This article by Mike Rogoway, Business and Technology Reporter, was originally published on Oregonlive.com in August 2016. Click here to read the article on OregonLive.
As Tigard-based ID Experts took on new ownership this month, it also spun out a new business: RADAR.
The new company is formally launching this week with 30 employees in its downtown Portland headquarters and $6.2 million in funding, backed by some of ID Experts’ prior investors.
Like ID Experts, RADAR helps clients guard against privacy breaches. It also helps organizations ensure that they are complying with government regulations, and whether online security breaches require that they notify government authorities.
Oregon tech companies used to spin out new businesses all the time. Tektronix produced dozens of offspring, among them Mentor Graphics, Planar Systems and Cascade Microtech. More recently, Elemental Technologies emerged a decade ago from Pixelworks.
It’s less common recently, in part because the Silicon Forest has produced relatively few companies large enough to produce viable offshoots.
RADAR has been operating as a business unit within ID Experts since 2014, according to Mahmood Sher-Jan, the new company’s chief executive. He said plans always called for separating RADAR eventually, and said the timing of the split is just coincident with ID Experts’ sale.
“Being independent gives us the agility and not having to be competing for resources in a bigger organization,” Sher-Jan said. In time, he said some of ID Experts’ services may partner with companies that compete with Radar’s former parent.
ID Experts has no stake in the new business, according to Sher-Jan. He said RADAR’s new funding comes from longtime ID Experts investors, who also comprise the new company’s owners, but he declined to identify them. Oregon-based Rogue Venture Partners, which had backed ID Experts, said it is a lead investor in RADAR.
RADAR plans to spend its new investment capital adding to its technology and on sales and marketing, according to Sher-Jan. The company has a handful of open jobs listed on its website.
Click here to read the article in its original format on OregonLive.