At a glance.
- Permira acquires Mimecast for $5.8 billion.
- Semperis raises over $200 million in Series C funding.
- IBM providing $5 million in grants to help schools address cybersecurity resiliency.
Mergers and acquisitions.
London-based global investment firm Permira has acquired cloud-based email management company Mimecast for $5.8 billion. Peter Bauer, chairman and CEO of Mimecast said, “With Permira’s resources, network and deep experience scaling global technology companies, we will be better positioned than ever to deliver the innovations that our customers and the world need. I want to thank our 2,000 Mimecasters for their relentless dedication to our customers and our mission.”
Virginia-based defense, intelligence, and critical infrastructure engineering firm Parsons Corporation has announced that it will be acquiring cybersecurity provider Xator Corporation for $400 million. Carey Smith, Parsons’ chair, president, and CEO said, “The addition of Xator is a natural extension of our growth strategy, adding important solutions and technologies that advance global security and protect critical infrastructure during a time of increasing and evolving threats.”
Investments and exits.
New Jersey-based identity-driven cyber resilience company Semperis has raised over $200 million in Series C funding led by KKR, with participation from Ten Eleven Ventures, Paladin Capital Group, Atrium Health Strategic Fund, Tech Pioneers Fund, and existing investors including Insight Partners. Business Wire reports that the funding will “help enable Semperis to accelerate hiring across all functions globally to better support its expanding customer base, with an emphasis on its identity-focused incident response team.”
California-based enterprise data protection company Seclore has raised $27 million in Series C funding, led by Origami Capital Partners and Oquirrh Ventures. SecurityWeek reports that the funding “will allow Seclore to accelerate the development of its data security platform.”
Virginia-based intelligence company Nisos has raised $15 million in Series B funding, led by Paladin Capital Group, alongside existing investors Columbia Capital and Skylab Capital. Dark Reading reports that the funding “will be leveraged to accelerate company growth with investments in the company’s Managed Intelligence services, the Nisos Intelligence Platform™, and additional staff to meet client’s increasing intelligence needs.”
New York-based cloud data security and privacy company ShardSecure has raised $11 million in Series A funding, led by Grotech Ventures, with participation from Gula Tech Adventures and KPMG LLP, as well as existing investors Tom Noonan, EPIC Ventures, and Industrifonden. PR Newswire reports that the funding “will be used to further grow ShardSecure's cloud data security platform — including continued product development and third-party product integrations — and expand its sales and marketing operations in North America and Europe.”
Israeli cloud data security startup Dig has emerged from stealth with $11 million in seed funding, led by Team8, with participation from CrowdStrike, CyberArk and Merlin Ventures. TechCrunch reports that the company will use the funding “to grow its headcount from 30 to 50 by the end of the year” and expand the product.
Israeli cybersecurity startup MazeBolt Technologies has completed a $10 million round of equity financing from existing shareholders. The company specializes in DDoS attack mitigation using their service, MazeBolt RADAR. “Our immediate key challenge is to bring to the attention of cyber security decision makers the fact that this first of a kind product is now available and has been extensively validated in commercial use across multiple industries and environments,” said Matthew Andriani, MazeBolt’s CEO and founder.
Executive moves.
Illumio has appointed Mario Espinoza as Chief Product Officer.
Varonis has hired Maheswaran Shamugasundaram as the company's first country manager for India, Shing Ping Loi as the company's first country manager for Singapore, and Katsuya Tsujimoto as the company's first country manager for Japan.
Forcepoint has appointed Beth Gaspich to its Board of Directors.
QinetiQ has hired Steve Mogford as a new non-executive director.
Mitek has appointed Chris Briggs as Head of Product.
ReliaQuest has hired Mike McPherson as Senior VP of Security Operations and Regina Marrow as Chief Information Officer.
Pragmatics has hired James Fraley as Senior VP and Chief Scientist.
ExtraHop has hired Fouad Tawk as Area Vice President of Middle East, Turkey, and North Africa.
TitanHQ has hired Tom Watson as channel chief.
Gigamon has appointed Mark Coates as VP of EMEA.
Sternum has hired Amit Serper as Director of Security Research.
LastPass has expanded their executive team, hiring Christofer Hoff as Chief Secure Technology Officer, Lora Rodstein as Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Pegi Wheeler as Senior Vice President of Operations and Rob Charlebois as Chief Marketing Officer.
BlueVoyant has appointed Malcolm Harkins and Myrna Soto as advisors to the Strategic Development Group.
DirectDefense has appointed Jared Ballou as Vice President of Business Development.
OneSpan has hired Michael Klieman as Chief Product Officer.
Binary Defense has appointed Bob Meindl as Chief Executive Officer.
Okta has hired Phil Goldie as ANZ vice president and country manager.
DNSFilter has appointed Colin Britton as Chief Operating Officer and Dave Raphael as Chief Product Officer.
PKWARE has promoted Matt Zomboracz to Chief Financial Officer.
Onapsis has appointed Kellie Snyder as Chief Customer Officer.
McAfee CEO Peter Leav is stepping down, and Greg Johnson will be taking over.
Rubrik has appointed Michael Mestrovich as the Company’s Chief Information Security Officer. Mestrovich was formerly the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Chief Information Security Officer.
Avocado Systems has hired James Sortino as Chief Revenue Officer.
MorganFranklin Consulting has hired Michael Orozco as a Managing Director and Advisory Services Leader.
Company news.
IBM announced Tuesday that it will be providing $5 million in grants to help address cybersecurity resiliency in schools worldwide due to growing ransomware threats. “For schools, a large barrier to strengthening their cybersecurity posture often comes down to constrained budgets, which financially motivated threat actors bet on,” said Charles Henderson, Global Managing Partner and Head of IBM Security X-Force. “As a leader in the security community, it’s our duty to help our educational institutions strengthen their cyber preparedness.”
California-based post-quantum cryptography company QuSecure has announced the company’s launch, launching an end-to-end quantum resilient orchestration platform. The company’s CEO Dave Krauthamer said, “QuSecure’s mission is to provide enterprises and government organizations with a comprehensive cryptographic orchestration platform that addresses today’s classical and future quantum threats.”