Local investment corporation ST Telemedia (STT) has invested US$89 million (S$124 million) in Armor, the first company in the world to establish a secure hosted cloud.

The investment will be used to drive the company's growth.

STT, a unit of Singapore investment company Temasek Holdings, has become a joint lead shareholder with The Stephens Group, the existing majority shareholder in Armor.

Armor's platform protects customers' information and helps prevent data breaches through managed multi-layer security for public and private clouds.

Armor also applies military cyber security techniques for threat detection, response and remediation. It has about 1,200 customers across more than 40 countries.

"Much of our growth has been attributed to word of mouth and customers seeking us out as they searched for a reliable security partner," said founder and chief executive Chris Drake.

"This additional capital and partnership... will help spur innovation, drive brand awareness and broaden global distribution channels," he added.

STT said in a statement yesterday that the investment in Armor adds to its technology infrastructure and enterprise software portfolio and "provides the company with a leading presence in the growing cyber security and cloud infrastructure markets".

"Security is a baseline concern as organisations seek to move to the cloud," said Mr Nikhil Eapen, chief strategy and investment officer at STT.

"Protecting data and ensuring compliance is complex and organisations need specialised help to keep pace with increasingly complex cyber threats."

This means there are significant opportunities for Armor to gain market share as the popularity of public clouds grows, he added.