Clearswift Snaps Up Content-Management Vendor

With its $30 million acquisition of Baltimore Technologies' Content Technologies subsidiary, privately held Clearswift hopes to dominate the growing content-security market. Under the deal, backed by venture-capital firms Amadeus Capital Partners, Cazenove Private Equity, and Kennet Capital, Clearswift will pay $17.1 million cash and $3.5 million of Clearswift's 5% loan notes that mature in 12 months. Baltimore will retain an 11% stake in Clearswift.

The content-management market will grow 20.5% annually through 2005, International Data Corp. estimates, which should give Clearswift plenty of opportunity. The deal will help Clearswift expand its Unix-based content-filtering, messaging-policy, and E-mail security products, says chief marketing officer Paul Rutherford. Content Technologies' core strength is its MIMEsweeper software on Microsoft Windows NT.

The deal comes 16 months after Baltimore acquired Content Technologies for about $992 million.