A screenshot of AffirmTrust's website
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — SSL certificate authority GeoTrust (www.geotrust.com) announced on Wednesday that its founders have launched a new SSL certificate authority called AffirmTrust (www.affirmtrust.com) after a non-compete agreement with VeriSign expired.
According to the press release, the AffirmTrust management team is the co-founding team of GeoTrust, which was acquired by VeriSign in 2006 for $125 million.
AffirmTrust says it self-funded the company to fulfill a major market opportunity.
“We are excited to be jumping back into the Internet security market in our launch of AffirmTrust,” Neal Creighton, executive chairman, AffirmTrust said in a statement. “Our approach to bringing a successful company to market is predicated on our ability fund the organization ourselves, handpicking the personnel and partners we trust to work with. Our experience bringing GeoTrust to market and subsequently to an acquisition by VeriSign gives us the ability to start AffirmTrust knowing exactly how to succeed again. We are excited to have control over our own destiny and do not plan to seek venture financing. We greatly appreciate the strategic assistance from Vesbridge Venture Capital at GeoTrust, yet we feel that we are now in a position to create an attractive company through self financing.”
AffirmTrust says its management team consists of Creighton, former GeoTrust CTO Chris Bailey, former VP of operations for GeoTrust Kirk Hall and former GeoTrust principal engineer Kefeng Chen. Bailey is president and CEO of AffirmTrust, Hall is COO and Chen is CTO.
According to the press release, AffirmTrust is located in Marlboro, MA and Portland, OR. The company is currently hiring across all departments.
AffirmTrust will launch its AffirmSecure Internet security product over the next few months.
The SSL certificate space is competitive, but AffirmTrust hopes to offer a more inexpensive version compared to most other providers.
Last year GeoTrust slashed its prices in half and launched a campaign to attract customers from GoDaddy.
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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