Motorola chips into $10M funding round for security sw startup

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- Electronic News, 5/21/2007

In the latest of the company's growing number of investments outside of the mobile devices realm, Motorola Inc. has chipped into a $10 million funding round for security software startup VidSys Inc.

VidSys provides physical security information management (PSIM) solutions for safety, security, commercial, surveillance, military and transportation organizations. Motorola Ventures, Motorola's strategic venture capital arm, participated in the company's series B round with existing investor IDG Ventures Boston. VidSys said it will use the funding for sales, marketing and product development initiatives.

An emerging technology category in the physical security market, VidSys touts PSIM as "the marriage of video management for security and surveillance applications with situation management." The company, which has offices in Vienna, Va. and Marlborough, Mass., has a customer base of direct and indirect sales channels with the City of Chicago, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, the Texas Department of Transportation, and the California Department of Transportation.

"There is a need for a stronger convergence of physical and IT security assets in order to provide better response to public safety incidents and threats," Reese Schroeder, Motorola Ventures' managing director, said in a statement. "With a proven technology and an experienced management team, VidSys is well-positioned to help operations centers glean more intelligence from their security technologies and existing infrastructure to improve incident management."

This is just the latest news in a slew of recent moves Motorola has made outside of the mobile phone market. Last week, the company inked a definitive merger agreement to acquire privately held video systems company Modulus Video Inc. Financial terms of that deal were not disclosed.