SPE.L Regulatory News (SPE)

SOPHEON PLC

("Sopheon" or the "Company")

Sopheon Earns Authority to Operate (ATO) Designation for the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA)

Sopheon Accolade® is the first commercial cloud innovation management platform to achieve ATO with the U.S. Navy's rigorous Risk Management Framework

Sopheon today announced that it has received Authority to Operate (ATO) for the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). With a fiscal year budget of nearly $30 billion, NAVSEA is the largest of the Navy's five system commands. NAVSEA's military and civilian personnel engineer, build, buy and maintain the Navy's ships and submarines.

Accolade is Sopheon's award-winning innovation management platform that connects people, systems and information across departments and functions. This collaboration and synchronization results in trusted, timely data for faster, better and more dynamic decision-making.

"Maintaining the world's most powerful military and staying well ahead of adversaries requires endless innovation," said Greg Coticchia, CEO of Sopheon. "It is quite an achievement to become the first commercial cloud innovation management platform to earn the ATO designation. Sopheon understands and is proficient in operations demanding innovation and tightly controlled security frameworks. We look forward to serving the Navy and, in time, other sectors of the U.S. armed forces, in their mission to defend the United States."

Sopheon Accolade will now be listed on the marketplace maintained by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). FedRAMP is a U.S. government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services.

Earning an ATO designation is a rigorous process that takes years to complete. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Risk Management Framework demands companies implement strict authorization for information security. Achieving ATO status allows a company's program to be used in a government environment. With this designation, dozens of other departments will be able to leverage the Navy's security authorization through reciprocity. This will significantly expedite the ATO process for additional sectors of the DoD to move forward with using Accolade.

The Cloud Assurance Division of the Defense Information Systems Agency served as reviewer on the FedRAMP Joint Authorization Board, which consisted of representatives from the DoD, the Department of Homeland Security and the General Services Administration. This process ensures that all Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and Cloud Service Offerings (CSOs) meet the cloud security requirements of the DoD.

Sopheon's Cloud Lift program is designed to assist enterprises and government organizations with operating efficiently and securely in the cloud. By removing the need for departments to manage software in their environment, Sopheon reduces costs and enables faster access to new features and capabilities.

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Sopheon and Accolade are trademarks of Sopheon plc. Stage-Gate® is a registered trademark of Stage-Gate Inc.

About Sopheon. Sopheon (LSE: SPE) partners with customers to provide complete enterprise innovation management solutions including software, expertise, and best practices, that enable them to achieve exceptional long-term revenue growth and profitability. Sopheon's Accolade solution provides unique, fully-integrated coverage for the entire innovation management and new product development lifecycle, including strategic innovation planning, roadmapping, idea and concept development, process and project management, portfolio management and resource planning. Sopheon's solutions have been implemented by over 200 customers with over 60,000 users in over 50 countries. Sopheon is listed on AIM, operated by the London Stock Exchange. For more information, please visit www.sopheon.com.