SonicWall Completes Successful Recap with Oversubscribed Interest, Continues to Drive Record Momentum Across the Business

• Recap marks final financial and operational independence as a stand-alone company
• Surpassed financial objectives for sixth straight quarter
• Set records with new product releases, customer service, partner growth and customer renewal rates
• Honored with 27 cybersecurity industry awards in 2018 to date

PRESS RELEASE – May 22, 2018

MILPITAS, Calif. — SonicWall, the trusted security partner protecting more than 1 million networks worldwide, announces that it has recapped the company, marking its separation from Quest. The strong interest from potential investors is underpinned by SonicWall’s solid financial performance, exceeding its financial objectives for six straight quarters, while also posting a world-class 90-plus percent customer renewal rate for Q1, a 14 percent year-over-year increase.

“The plan we built with SonicWall was aggressive, but we had full confidence the leadership and employees would execute and deliver to meet and surpass our goals,” said Dipanjan (DJ) Deb, Founding Partner and CEO of Francisco Partners. “This performance only bolsters our faith in the company, employees, partners and customers, and we know the future looks bright together.”

SonicWall, which was oversubscribed in investment interest, continues to surpass the expectations set upon them by private equity owner Francisco Partners, which purchased the company in 2016. The recap was accelerated by aggressive growth of the SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) service. Year-over-year, the multi-engine cloud sandbox saw 188 percent revenue growth and a 150 percent increase in attachment rates.

“I’m delighted with the agility and execution of our team these last 18 months,” said SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner. “They believed in the vision of our company and were diligent in making it a reality. To exceed financial objectives at such an impressive pace — and to recap the company for a second time — is a testament to not only these dedicated employees, but our loyal partners and customers around the world.”

Capture Cloud Platform Spearheading Product Innovation, Momentum
In April 2018, SonicWall announced the Capture Cloud Platform, which tightly integrates security, management, analytics and real-time threat intelligence across the company’s full portfolio of network, email, mobile and cloud security products. To support this product initiative, SonicWall engineers added a record 125 million lines of code in just an eight-month span.

“The precision, speed and execution of SonicWall is truly remarkable, particularly in the competitive cybersecurity landscape,” said Brian Decker, head of security investing at Francisco Partners. “We’ve provided guidance and management for countless technology companies, but rarely do we witness an aggressive plan implemented via such a flawless and measured strategy. SonicWall is in an elite class and we couldn’t be more enthusiastic to watch what goals they exceed next.”

During the April launch, SonicWall also introduced new and enhanced hardware and virtual products, as well as the new SonicWall Capture Client endpoint protection solution with automated rollback capabilities. The portfolio expansion provides partners and customers the versatile solutions to deploy automated real-time security and breach prevention across any environment type.

“I am just amazed how much work SonicWall has done in the last 12 months,” said Jan Ježek, a network security specialist from Business Communication (Bcom), a SecureFirst partner in the Czech Republic. “I’d like to express my appreciation for all the effort being put into marketing, product recognition, partner support and, of course, the huge development of the powerful and beloved security products.”

Ongoing Enhancements Improving Customer Support, Service
SonicWall’s agile product development was complemented by the company’s persistent focus on enhancing customer service and technical support. Key improvements include:

• 89 percent year-over-year decrease in case backlogs
• 84 percent year-over-year decrease in average case age
• 74 percent year-over-year decrease in call abandonment
• 95 percent positive knowledgebase (KB) article rating
• 13:1 average self-service score in fiscal year 2019; record 15:1 score in April 2018

Channel Development, Partner Enablement Programs Continue Record Growth
The SonicWall SecureFirst partner program added more than 9,800 new registrants in 2018, a 145 percent increase from 2017. New and existing SonicWall SecureFirst partners also continue to engage with SonicWall University, the company’s modern online training platform. The integrated programs are delivering strategic partner enablement:

• 24,725 SecureFirst partner registrations (60 percent year-over-year increase)
• 155,232 completed SonicWall University exams (715 percent year-over-year increase)
• 77,616 total SonicWall University training hours (304 percent year-over-year increase)
• $530 million in partner deal registration (112 percent year-over-year increase)

Third-Party Accolades Validating SonicWall Mission
Since the start of 2018, SonicWall has collected 27 cybersecurity industry accolades. Most recently, SonicWall was named the Cyber Defense Magazine InfoSec Cybersecurity Company of the Year, and SonicWall Capture ATP with Real-time Deep Memory InspectionTM won the 2018 Silver Stevie Award in the New Product or Service of the Year, Software, Network Security Solution category.

For More Information
To learn more about SonicWall, or to partner with us, please visit:
• SonicWall on Twitter
• SonicWall on LinkedIn
• SonicWall on Facebook
• SonicWall on Instagram

About SonicWall
SonicWall has been fighting the cyber-criminal industry for over 26 years defending small, medium-size businesses and enterprises worldwide. Backed by research from SonicWall Capture Labs and the formidable resources of over 24,000 loyal channel partners around the globe, our award-winning, real-time breach detection and prevention solutions secure more than a million business and mobile networks and their emails, applications and data. This combination of products and partners has enabled an automated real-time breach detection and prevention solution tuned to the specific needs of the more than 500,000 organizations in over 200 countries and territories. These businesses can run more effectively and fear less about security. For more information, visit www.sonicwall.com.

Media contacts:
Sam Ashcroft / Elliot Harrison
E: sonicwall@positivemarketing.com
T: 0203 637 0640