Republic Financial Leads Multi-Million Dollar Funding for Cerebit; Software Veteran F. Scott Blackburn Named CEO

Business Wire, Dec 14, 2004

TAMPA, Fla. -- Cerebit, http://www.cerebit.com, an innovator of application security software, today announced that it has closed a round of funding led by Republic Financial Corporation (Republic), a Denver-based privately held investment company, and names F. Scott Blackburn as CEO. Cerebit will use the funds to secure customers of their patent-pending products, round out the management team and expand its sales, marketing and business development initiatives. The amount of the funding as well as the other participants of the syndicate was not announced.

Cerebit develops holistic application security solutions that are non-intrusive to applications and include support for all six aspects of security (authentication, authorization, confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation and audit). Cerebit's adaptable solutions are ideally suited for companies needing to immediately comply with existing corporate governance mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA while laying the foundation to address emerging security and regulatory needs. Cerebit's products were developed as the result of work completed for major financial institutions that required scalable solutions that could handle very high throughput while delivering "best practices" security.

"The expansion of digital boundaries as well as the introduction of several regulatory mandates has created a massive market opportunity," said Paul Morrison, Managing Director of Republic's Private Equity Group. "When you consider the market that exists for Cerebit's products and the innovative way that the Company addresses the market need, Republic is confident that all the ingredients are in place for success. We feel especially confident when we combine a strong existing product offering with Scott's proven track record in enterprise software sales and experience in building successful software companies." Morrison will be serving on Cerebit's Board of Directors.

Scott Blackburn co-founded CommerceQuest where he served as President and Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors since its inception. Under his guidance CommerceQuest grew from a start-up to a global provider of integration software and services with over $37M in annual revenues. Blackburn was also responsible for forming strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as Tivoli, BMC Software, Computer Associates and IBM. Prior to founding CommerceQuest, Blackburn held Sales Executive positions at Informix and IBM.

"I've had the chance to meet with several prospective customers and strategic partners," said Scott Blackburn, CEO of Cerebit. "Everyone that I have met with believes that Cerebit has taken a truly unique approach to protecting business-critical information assets in a way that is very cost effective and adaptive to ever-changing business conditions."

About Republic Financial Corporation

Republic Financial Corporation, located in Aurora, Colorado, is a privately held investment company with several specialties including growth and expansion capital investments in diversified industries. With business groups focused on private equity, aviation, energy and natural resources, Republic has delivered uncommon solutions for opportunity-driven investments. Founded in 1971, Republic has invested in assets worth over $1 billion and has achieved commercial success by employing intensive due diligence and asset management to generate profitable returns. For more information please visit http://www.republic-financial.com.

About Cerebit

Tampa based Cerebit builds trust and visibility into enterprise applications by preventing authorized users from misusing business-critical information. The Company enables enterprises to cost effectively comply with government regulations, abstract security from applications, and gain total visibility into outsourced business processes. Cerebit's solutions deliver a holistic approach to non-intrusively safeguard both legacy and Web applications. Cerebit's customers realize a rapid return on investment, very low total cost of ownership, as well as the ability to scale and adapt easily in even the most complex IT environments. For more information please visit http://www.cerebit.com.