At a glance.
- McAfee to be acquired by investor group for $14 billion.
- Socure raises $450 million in Series E round.
Mergers and acquisitions.
McAfee has agreed to be acquired by a group of private equity firms for more than $14 billion. The private equity firms are Advent International, Permira, Crosspoint Capital, CPP Investments, GIC, and ADIA. The company stated, "Upon completion of the transaction, the Investor Group will take ownership of McAfee. As a privately held company, McAfee will continue building on its success and proven track record of growth as a pure-play consumer cybersecurity leader following the sale of McAfee’s Enterprise business, and the associated one-time dividend of $4.50 per share, to private equity firm Symphony Technology Group for $4.0 billion, which closed on July 27, 2021."
Swedish vulnerability management firm Outpost24 has acquired Stockholm-based password management and authentication company Specops. The company stated, "The Specops acquisition will further enhance Outpost24's full stack security assessment offering and provide enterprises insight into specific user access to reduce cyber risk across the entire attack surface." Outpost24 has also secured SEK 50 million (US$5.8 million) in funding from Swedbank Robur and Alcur Fonder.
Dallas, Texas-based ERP data security and compliance company Appsian Security has acquired Q Software, a UK- and Colorado-headquartered compliance software provider for JD Edwards, Oracle E-Business Suite, and Oracle ERP Cloud. Appsian stated, "The acquisition provides a strategic opportunity for Appsian Security and Q Software to expand their current capabilities while delivering additional value to their existing customers."
Arlington, Virginia-based national security technology company BlueHalo, a portfolio company of Arlington Capital Partners, has acquired San Diego-based counter-drone company Citadel Defense. The company stated, "The acquisition of Citadel complements BlueHalo’s directed energy and layered perimeter defense capabilities where the company delivers a full suite of products including the Locust Laser Weapon System and Argus Perimeter Security Solution. Citadel’s cUAS capabilities coupled with BlueHalo’s existing portfolio of proprietary technology will uniquely enable the company to deliver multi-modal, unified cUAS solutions that support the warfighter and protect critical infrastructure."
Canadian IT management firm OpenText has agreed to acquire Dallas, Texas-based email security company Zix for $860 million. OpenText's CEO and CTO Mark Barrenechea stated, "We intend to integrate Carbonite, Webroot and Zix products to create a powerhouse SMB platform for data protection, threat management, email security and compliance solutions. Acquisitions of cloud growth assets like Zix highlights our commitment to our Total Growth strategy and approach to cash-based returns. Zix will deepen our technology and go-to-market relationship with Microsoft. Further, Zix will bring approximately 5,600 MSPs to OpenText, and create significant cross-sell opportunities in the OpenText and Zix clouds."
Seattle-based DNS security company DomainTools has acquired San Mateo, California-based DNS intelligence firm Farsight Security. DomainTools's CEO Tim Chen stated, "This acquisition enhances our ability to drive security-forward detection, investigation, enrichment and mitigation outcomes for our joint customers while accelerating our data science advancements for predictive risk scoring of domain names, hostnames, IP addresses, nameservers and other DNS indicators."
Investments and exits.
New York City-based digital identity verification company Socure has raised $450 million in a Series E round led by Accel and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Tiger Global, and existing investors Commerce Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and Sorenson Ventures. The company stated, "We will make bold investments where we see a strategic opportunity to expand our market leadership position either through product innovation, acquisition and/or new market penetration. GTM priorities will include penetrating new verticals to maximize the scale and intelligence of Socure’s ID graph and consortium network as well as its ID+ platform to not only prevent third-party and synthetic fraud, but also to address transaction and first-party fraud risk while enabling world-class self-service analytics and capabilities."
Los Altos, California-based code security company Contrast Security has raised $150 million in a Series E round led by Liberty Strategic Capital, with participation from existing investors Warburg Pincus, Battery Ventures, General Catalyst, Microsoft's M12, AXA Venture Partners, and Acero Capital. The company stated, "This investment allows Contrast to meet the growing demand for the world's only platform for code security. It will also enable the company to further gain market share with accelerated global expansion plans, following growth in EMEA and rapid customer adoption in APAC, and provide the company with additional flexibility to execute on strategic opportunities and acquisitions."
Herndon, Virginia-based geospatial analytics company HawkEye 360 has secured $145 million in a Series D round led by Insight Partners and Seraphim Space Investment Trust, with participation from Tawazun Holding's Strategic Development Fund, Jacobs, Gula Tech Adventures, 116 Street Ventures, and New North Ventures, as well as existing investors Advance, Razor’s Edge, NightDragon, SVB Capital, Shield Capital, and Adage Capital. The company stated, "In the years ahead, the company will expand on its proven capabilities to deliver persistent RF data and analytics. This next phase of growth, backed by the latest funding round, will feature faster revisit rates, greater signal collection and enhanced analytics to address a large set of mission needs for clients."
San Diego-based compliance automation company Drata has raised $100 million in a Series B round led by ICONIQ Growth, with participation from Alkeon Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and existing investors GGV Capital, Cowboy Ventures, and Leaders Fund. The company stated, "Now, in tandem with the new funding, Drata prepares to launch two additional frameworks, HIPAA and PCI DSS, expanding on its current offering of ISO 27001 and SOC 2. The company will continue to innovate with new features that further streamline compliance and monitor security posture for companies operating in the cloud."
Sunnyvale, California-based breach and attack simulation company SafeBreach has acquired $53.5 million in a Series D round led by Sonae IM and Israel Growth Partners, with participation from Sands Capital, Leumi Partners, and ServiceNow. The company says the funding "will fuel the company's plans to expand its market footprint to new geographies and evolve its offerings in response to client needs."
New York-based compliance-as-a-service platform provider Laika has raised $35 million in a Series B round led by JPMorgan Growth Equity Partners with participation from PayPal Ventures and existing investors Canapi, Bain Capital Ventures, Third Prime, and Nyca Partners. According to SecurityWeek, the company "says it will use the funds to build additional automation, to add audit experiences to its platform, and to invest in growth and market momentum."
Whitefish, Montana-based fraud prevention company Neuro-ID has secured $35 million in a Series B round led by Canapi Ventures, with participation from existing investors Fin VC and TTV Capital. The company says it "will use the additional capital to accelerate its mission of unlocking conversion and optimizing fraud screening for digital organizations of all sizes."
Arlington, Virginia-based adversarial emulation company SCYTHE has raised $10 million in a Series A round led by Gula Tech Ventures and Paladin Capital Group, with participation from Energy Impact Partners. The company stated, "The new investment puts SCYTHE in a strong market position to expand the company’s engineering, sales and marketing, and customer service operations for SCYTHE’s advanced attack emulation platform for the enterprise and cybersecurity consulting market."
Executive moves.
Platform9 has named Bhaskar Gorti as CEO. Gorti has previously served as Senior Vice President at Oracle Corporation and President of Nokia Software.
Evolution Equity Partners has appointed Phil Quade as Chief Operating Officer. Quade previously served as Chief Information Security Officer at Fortinet.
AttackIQ has appointed Ken Schock as Chief Revenue Officer.
ZeroFox has hired Brian Kime, a former analyst at Forrester, as Vice President of Intelligence, Strategy, and Advisory.
Query.AI has hired Ron Schnackenberg as Head of Customer Success. Schnackenberg previously served as Head of Customer Success at Agari.