Lookout Inc. has just raised a formidable $150 million in financing from some of the biggest names on Wall Street to extend its reach beyond the consumer space and into the enterprise. The long-coming move signals the beginning of a new phase for the mobile security powerhouse, one that may very well conclude in a public offering.

Founded by the name Flexilis two years before the original iPhone was launched, the San Francisco-based Lookout has taken the market by storm with a fresh approach to defending devices that brings traditional anti-malware functionality and practical features such as backup together under a user-friendly interface. Reinforced by a freemium model, that combination quickly catapulted the firm past incumbents such as Symantec Corp. and Intel’s McAfee Inc. to the top position in the end-point protection category, attracting over 50 million users including several million paying customers.

Lookout is banking on that massive adoption to act as as a sort of Trojan horse into the enterprise, not unlike how the popularity of smartphones and tablets among consumers brought mobility into the workplace despite management obstacles within IT departments. Yet while workforces are certainly demanding more self-service functionality. the ease-of-use that has earned Lookout a dominant share of its home market won’t be enough to secure a solid footing in the corporate network on its own.

To do that, Lookout has to take the needs of the CIO into consideration, too. That will require it to venture deeper into the enterprise mobility management (EMM) market with more management and monitoring capabilities, a pivot that will inevitably draw increased competition.  The firm is not only going up against traditional rivals but also leading device makers like Apple Inc. that have developed their own EMM solutions and dozens of third party vendors.

The cost of new market opportunities

Building out a well-rounded roster of enterprise capabilities is an expensive endeavor, especially when taken together with how much it will cost Lookout to establish a large enough field presence to effectively engage and support corporate customers across multiple markets. But even after all that, the company should still have plenty left over from its latest $150 million round, which suggests that a sizable portion of the capital is destined elsewhere. And there’s only one direction it can go: driving strategic expansion.

The emphasis on the enterprise, where the ratio of paid subscribers to total users is considerably higher than in the consumer space, hints that Lookout may be trying to make its bottom line more appealing in preparation for a public offering. That is seemingly supported by the fact that the funding was led by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., a mutual funds giant with a known taste for late-stage tech firms heading towards multibillion IPOs.  And as if that wasn’t enough proof, an unnamed insider leaked to Bloomberg that the financing tipped Lookout‘s valuation over the crucial one billion dollar mark.

The round also saw the participation of several other Wall Street big-wigs besides T. Rowe Price, namely Morgan Stanley Investment Management Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wellington Management Company, LLP. Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment fund of Amazon.com Inc. Jeff Bezos, chipped in as well along with five existing institutional backers, bringing Lookout’s total raised to $282 million.

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