A $12 million USD round of financing has the software compliance management company ready to expand.

Participation from other companies like SAP and Fidelity Ventures has provided Black Duck with the means to expand its sales, marketing, and product development activities, the company said in a statement.

The company’s software allows businesses to assess the use of open source and other code with their own ventures while protecting their intellectual property investment.

“Enterprises are embracing open source software for its cost savings, quality and control benefits. Its use is rapidly becoming mainstream in IT organizations around the world,” said Dave Power, partner, Fidelity Ventures.

“Black Duck helps remove one of the last remaining roadblocks to wide-spread enterprise adoption of open source. Their solutions enable businesses to understand and manage complex license obligations so they can safely and productively use open source software in their critical operations.”

As software companies tinker with incorporating open-source products into their offerings, those companies are concerned about not violating terms of a license like the GPL, under which many open-source projects operate.

Violating those terms could mean an enterprise would have to make its proprietary product’s source code freely available, a situation a business may not wish to encounter. The need for more effective licensing reviews and controls has led to the upswing in companies like Black Duck.

Automated tools can do a more effective job of assisting developers in finding copied code than they may be able to do on their own. Companies have a solid reason to maintain good internal control of their developing: it’s mandated under the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act as pertaining to public companies.

David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.