Lookout has raised $150 million to build a mobile anti-malware network

Things are really looking up for mobile security player Lookout. Lookout, based in San Francisco, has raised $150 million from a bevy of well known investors, it announced Wednesday, including lead T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Goldman Sachs, and Bezos Expeditions. Lookout’s Whole Population Security Analytics solution is proactive. It takes a predictive approach to make what the company executives call automated decision making to engage malware or intrusions before they penetrate your mobile device. Or worse.

Lookout, a seven-year-old mobile security company in San Francisco, is riding a wave of concern over cyberthreats, with 50 million people using its security app. Now, the company has raised a fresh haul of venture capital from some major financial firms. Lookout announced on Wednesday that it had attracted $150 million from investors led by T. Rowe Price Associates. Other investors include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, the Wellington Management Company and Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment fund of Jeffrey P. Bezos of Amazon. A number of previous investors in the company – including the venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Accel Partners, Khosla Ventures, Index Ventures and Mithril Capital Management, which was founded by Peter Thiel – also participated. The presence of T. Rowe Price and Morgan Stanley Investment Management, two firms that serve wealthy individuals, could indicate that Lookout is at a mature stage. Young technology companies, when they are gearing up for an initial public offering, like to accept investments from such firms because they are seen as long-term investors that will not immediately sell shares in an I.P.O. “These are very long-term, patient investors who are here to help us in building a multidecade franchise,” said John Hering, the co-founder and executive chairman of Lookout, who until recently was the chief executive.