At a glance.
- Armis raises $300 million at a $3.4 billion valuation.
- Coinbase acquires Unbound Security.
Mergers and acquisitions.
Cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase has acquired Israeli cryptographic security company Unbound Security. Coinbase stated, "With this acquisition, Coinbase not only gains access to some of the world’s most sophisticated cryptographic security experts, including Unbound Security co-founder and current Vice President of Research and Development, Guy Peer, who brings more than 20 years of experience in cryptographic security, but also a presence in Israel, a well-established and rapidly growing technology hub. This presence in Israel will add an additional powerful prong to Coinbase’s global talent acquisition strategy, following on closely to recent thrusts into engineering talent bases such as India, Singapore and Brazil."
Norwegian risk management and assurance provider DNV will acquire Amsterdam-headquartered industrial cybersecurity company Applied Risk. The companies stated, "Applied Risk and DNV will operate together under the DNV brand. A combined leadership team from both companies will be tasked with scaling a merged cyber security business with ambitions for significant growth by the end of 2025."
Clearlake Capital Group has agreed to acquire Aliso Viejo, California-based cybersecurity and IT management firm Quest Software from Francisco Partners. Patrick Nichols, CEO of Quest, stated, "Our new partnership with Clearlake will accelerate Quest's momentum as a leader and innovator as we increase our investment pace in our core product roadmaps, cloud/SaaS offerings, and global presence. We will continue to expand our customer base as computing environments and related management, modernization, and security challenges, become more complex."
Sydney-headquartered data security firm Cipherpoint has completed its acquisition of Tasmania-based MSSP VIT Cyber Security for $1 million, CRN reports.
Investments and exits.
Palo Alto, California-based device visibility and security company Armis has raised $300 million in a funding round led by One Equity Partners, with participation from existing investors. The investment brings the company's valuation to $3.4 billion. The company's CEO Yevgeny Dibrov stated, "We will use this fresh infusion of funding to accelerate platform development, fuel regional expansion and support global GTM initiatives. It also nicely positions us to support future acquisitions. In other words, we’ll leverage this momentum to push harder, get stronger and continue to expand and scale our business."
Tampa, Florida-headquartered XDR provider ReliaQuest has received a funding round that brings the company's valuation to more than $1 billion. The round was led by existing investor KKR, with participation from Ten Eleven Ventures, FTV Capital, and ReliaQuest's founder Brian Murphy. The company says the funding "will be used to accelerate the expansion of ReliaQuest’s business operations and the continued development of its GreyMatter platform."
San Francisco-based software supply chain security firm Cycode has raised $56 million in a Series B round led by Insight Partners, with participation from existing investor YL Ventures. The company stated, "Cycode intends to use the funds to fuel sales growth and accelerate development of its product roadmap. Cycode is expanding its go-to-market capabilities by building a partner-friendly ecosystem of both channel and technology alliances. Engineering will focus on expanding Cycode’s pre-built integration network to include 3rd party security tools, deepening user behavior analytics and anomaly detection capabilities and continuing to enhance its knowledge graph to enable deep investigation of breach paths through an interactive link analysis-based interface."
San Jose, California-based hardware security firm Axiado has raised $25 million in an oversubscribed Series B round led by "Dennis Anthony H. Uy and Series A investor Orbit Venture Partners, and supplemented by a group of individual investors, including Dave Welch, Founder of Infinera, and Dick Kramlich, Chairman Emeritus of New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and General Partner of Green Bay Ventures."
Menlo Park, California-headquartered security program management platform Blue Lava has raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from existing investors Rally Ventures and ClearSky Security. Blue Lava's CEO David Walter stated, "This new funding will be used to expand our sales, marketing, and engineering teams, and accelerate growth of the Blue Lava customer community."
Herndon, Virginia-headquartered customer identity and access management provider Strivacity has raised $9.3 million in a Series A round led by Ten Eleven Ventures, with participation from Toba Capital. The company says it "will use the funding to accelerate R&D and expand go-to market investments in sales and marketing."
Singapore-based quantum-secure communication systems company SpeQtral has raised $8.3 million in a funding round led by Xora Innovation. The company says the funding "the funds will be used to expand SpeQtral’s regional and international presence, establish strategic business partnerships, hire top talent, support the commercial rollout of terrestrial systems, and further develop its satellite-based systems."
London-based privacy management company Soveren has raised $6.5 million in a seed round led by firstminute capital, with participation from Northzone and private investors.
Executive moves.
Jack Dorsey has stepped down as CEO of Twitter, NPR reports. Dorsey will be replaced as CEO by the company's current Chief Technology Officer, Parag Agrawal. Dorsey stated, "I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders."
Business Insider reports that Tanium's Chief Revenue Officer Thomas Stanley is leaving the company.
Rapid7 has appointed Tim Adams as Chief Financial Officer, effective January 3, 2022, following the retirement of the company's current CFO Jeff Kalowski. Adams previously served as CFO at BitSight Technologies.
Axis Security has appointed Jason Pishotti as Chief Customer Officer, Omar Fakhri joins as Vice President of Customer Care, and Chris Hines as Vice President of Product Marketing.
Secureworks has hired Demetrios Georgiou as Director of APAC.
Menlo Security has appointed Chris Georgellis as country manager for Australia and New Zealand, CRN reports.
Exabeam has appointed Gianna Driver as Chief Human Resources Officer. Driver previously served as Chief People Officer at BlueVine.
Immersive Labs has added Jennifer Johnson to its board of directors. Johnson currently serves as Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Amplitude.