Software Winners
Rishi Kacker and Matt Pauker
Voltage Security
www.voltage.com
Location: Palo Alto, Calif.
Founded: 2002
Age: Both 24
Voltage makes security software that can encrypt documents, files, and e-mails at the touch of a button. Kacker and Pauker worked on the technology as a summer research project while attending Stanford. They toiled in a basement office in the engineering building for about a year before entering a business-plan competition.
They won the contest. Along with bragging rights came venture-capital interest and a year's free legal advice from the marquee law firm to Silicon Valley startups, Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati. With the help of some seasoned executives, the two have created a thriving security-software business with more than 130 big-business customers and 75 employees. "It's still amazing to me," says Pauker.
Lesson learned:
"No matter how much you think you have it figured out, there's always a new challenge. But at the end of the day, that's what makes it interesting."
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