IBM (IBM)上周宣布同意收购Trusteer。Trusteer是一家帮助机构防范金融诈骗和高级安全威胁的公司。虽然交易条款未予披露，但以色列一家媒体称，收购价格在8亿-10亿美元之间。

    因此，《财富》杂志决定对风投资本家史蒂夫•克劳茨进行简短采访，他的公司USVP在5年前曾向Trusteer注资610万美元。以下是编辑后的访谈内容：

《财富》：最初你是怎么知道Trusteer公司的？

克劳茨：USVP在安全领域有着较长的投资史，曾经投资过的公司包括Check Point Software (CHPK)和Imperva (IMPV)。其实，我与斯科罗莫•克莱默（Imperva首席执行官兼联席创始人）现在还是Imperva的董事——另一位Imperva联席创始人是麦琪•布达艾，他也是Trusteer的联合创始人。我跟他们俩都很熟。此外，在投资以色列企业方面，USVP持有非常积极的策略，但仅限于以色列西海岸的企业。因此，斯科罗莫参与了Trusteer的A轮融资，而USVP参与了B轮融资，而且是投资Trusteer的唯一一家风投公司。

那是在2008年夏天，对吗？那个时候投资服务于金融服务公司的创业企业确实不易……

没错。我们在2008年8月完成了交易。接着，金融危机在9月份接踵而至。事实上，第一次董事会是在10月召开的。会议期间，我们都在想，90天过后，我们是否还能有一家拥有偿付能力的客户。但是我们没有失去信心，不仅是因为我们相信我们的团队，而且还因为，我们认为在线银行业务会出现爆炸式的增长，而公司的原始投资活动大都基于这一信念。

为什么Trusteer没有举行后续融资？

    他们之所以没这么做是因为这家公司找到了资质良好的大型客户。而且Trusteer本身也是一家治理完善的企业，并没有刻意去打造大规模的销售和营销。公司的团队对每一位客户和他们的需求都了如指掌。

你觉得它会上市吗？

我觉得这家公司有这个潜力。它的成长速度确实很快，但是IBM很好地向Trusteer展示了自己及其自身的优势，因此IBM胜出了。

你提到“IBM获胜了”，这是不是说其中有竞争者存在？

细节我不能多谈。

现在距你首次投资Trusteer已经过去了5年。期间让你感到最为惊讶的是什么？

钱。当我们一开始达成这笔交易时，我想当然地预计，这家公司还是会走安全公司融资的老路子。但我从来没有想到过，Trusteer仅凭两轮融资就发展到了今天这个地步。确实令人喜出望外。（财富中文网）  

    IBM (IBM) this morning announced an agreement to acquire Trusteer, a provider of software that helps protect organizations against financial fraud and advanced security threats. No terms were disclosed, but an Israeli press report puts the price tag at between $800 million and $1 billion.

    So Fortune decided to speak briefly with Steve Krausz, a venture capitalist whose firm USVP led a $6.1 million investment into the company five years ago. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation:

FORTUNE: How did you first hear about Trusteer?

Krausz: USVP has a long history in the security space, with companies like Check Point Software (CHPK) and Imperva (IMPV). In fact, I'm still on the board of Imperva with [company CEO and co-founder] Schlomo Kramer -- and another Imperva co-founder is Mickey Boodaei, who co-founded Trusteer. So I knew both of them. Plus, we have a very active strategy of investing in Israeli companies, but from the West Coast. So Schlomo invested in Trusteer's Series A, and we came in on the Series B as the company's only VC investor.

That was back in the summer of 2008, right? Rough time to back a startup aimed at financial services companies...

Yes. We closed the deal in August 2008, and then then the financial crisis hit the next month. In fact, our first board meeting was in October and we sat around the table wondering if we had any customers who would be solvent in 90 days. But we didn't lose faith, both because of team and because our original investment was largely based on what we believed would be explosive growth in online banking.

Why didn't Trusteer raise a follow-on round?

They didn't have to because they were able to find good, large accounts. And they ran a very tight ship without really building a large sales and marketing organization. The team knew all the customers and what they wanted.

Did you think it was an IPO candidate?

I think it had the potential to be public, it was certainly growing fast enough, but IBM did a great job of presenting itself and its advantages to Trusteer and they prevailed.

When you say "they prevailed," does that mean there was an auction process?

I'm not getting into any of those details.

It's been five years since you first invested. What surprised you the most?

The money. When we originally did the deal I certainly had an expectation that it would follow a more normal financing trajectory for security companies. I never imagined that they could get to this point on just two checks. It was a very pleasant surprise.