At a glance.
- Thoma Bravo acquiring ForgeRock.
- Vista Equity Partners acquiring KnowBe4.
- Arctic Wolf closes $401 million convertible notes offering.
- Our condolences on the passing of Tim Dowling, founder and CEO of Halo Security.
Mergers and acquisitions.
Thoma Bravo has announced its intent to acquire identity access management company ForgeRock for $2.3 billion. This is the third acquisition in this category this year. “Identity-centric cybersecurity solutions are a critical enabler for businesses to digitally transform their operations, and ForgeRock’s solutions combine both the advanced security and customer usability needed in the market,” said Chip Virnig, a partner at Thoma Bravo, in a press release. Paul Trulove, CEO of SecureAuth, said in a comment, “Another acquisition by Thoma Bravo in the IAM space just reinforces the importance of securing identities right now and the growing market size. Identity continues to be one of the top entry points for bad actors and many organizations still lag in taking an identity-centric approach to security. As organizations try to balance improved security with user experience, many are turning to next generation solutions like passwordless authentication. According to a recent ESG report: 63% of organizations report passwordless increased IT security and efficiency; 57% it has significantly reduced friction and improved user experience. We look forward to working with the new ForgeRock and its customers to augment their solution with SecureAuth’s passwordless, continuous authentication solutions.”
Vista Equity Partners is acquiring security awareness training company KnowBe4 for $4.6 million. KnowBe4 will be going private, and the deal is expected to close in the first half of 2023.
Swiss cybersecurity company Infinigate Group is merging with cybersecurity and cloud firm Starlink, based in Dubai. Infinigate said, “The move will extend Infinigate Group's reach to more than 50 countries, with offices in more than 30 countries. The joint enterprise will consolidate its position as a full EMEA (European, Middle East and Africa) powerhouse ... with more than 1,100 dedicated personnel, taking all completed and projected acquisitions into account."
Deloitte US has acquired Boston-based SFL Scientific, an artificial intelligence strategy and data science consulting firm. Dan Helfrich, chairman and CEO of Deloitte Consulting, said, "The acquisition builds on an already strong relationship between our two organizations serving both commercial and public sector clients. Additionally, it will help us advise clients with the best approach to how AI can help transform their business, implement scalable capabilities to drive that transformation, and provide ongoing support to continually improve investments with AI-infused tech."
Advanced technology and cybersecurity company Thales Group has completed two acquisitions of European cybersecurity companies S21sec and Excellium. Pierre-Yves Jolivet, Vice President of Cyberdefense Solutions at Thales said, "Excellium and S21sec strengthen Thales' cybersecurity leadership in the highly dynamic market for cybersecurity consulting and managed services. We intend to build on Excellium and S21sec’s strong history of innovation to add value to Thales' cyber solutions offering, while ensuring Excellium and S21sec customers benefit from long-term continuity, enhanced service capabilities and high-performance solutions."
Global mobile fleet and application security company Pradeo has acquired French application security software company Yagaan. Hervé le Goff, CEO of Yagaan, said, “We share with Pradeo the same taste for technological excellence and the need to unify cybersecurity solutions. By integrating Yagaan’s expertise and strategic source code auditing technology, Pradeo covers the entire mobile security chain and adds web application security to its portfolio. By forging a common destiny, this move consolidates Pradeo’s leadership and puts us at the forefront of the global cybersecurity market.”
Swedish cybersecurity company Allurity has acquired Danish service provider CSIS Security Group. This acquisition strengthens Allurity’s presence in Northern Europe. “I am delighted to welcome CSIS to our growing group, consisting of best-in-class cybersecurity service providers in Europe. CSIS is an important player in Northern Europe with a great reputation and fantastic growth potential. CSIS brings unique expertise, a scalable tech platform and high ambitions and we are committed to supporting them to reach their full potential. Together we have the common goal of fighting cybercrime and making the world a better place,” said Frida Westerberg, CEO of Allurity.
Global IT and business consulting firm Capgemini has acquired German business intelligence and data science company Braincourt and UK-based financial services consulting firm Quorsus. The acquisition of Braincourt will give Capgemini stronger data and analytics capabilities in Germany and northern Europe, and the acquisition of Quorsus will allow Capgemini the ability to support their capital market clients in addressing requirements and managing operations.
Investments and exits.
Minnesota-based security operations company Arctic Wolf closed a $401 million convertible notes offering, led by Owl Rock, a division of Blue Owl Capital, with participation from Viking Global Investors, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and funds advised by Neuberger Berman. David Jar, managing director at Owl Rock, a division of Blue Owl Capital, said, “Arctic Wolf addresses several of the key themes we see across the cybersecurity landscape: the challenge of monitoring and securing increasingly complex IT environments, the difficulty in keeping pace with sophisticated threat actors, the need to unify disparate and sprawling toolsets, and the major talent shortage in security. We’re thrilled to deepen our relationship with the management team as they continue their relentless focus on customers and executing against the market opportunity.”
United Kingdom and Boston-based Immersive Labs has raised $66 million in funding, led by Ten Eleven Ventures, with participation from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Summit Partners, Insight Partners, Menlo Ventures, and Citi Ventures. The funding will be used to grow and invest in the company’s Cyber Workforce Resilience platform.
Stairwell, a cybersecurity startup based in California, has raised $45 million in Series B funding, led by Section 32, with contributions from Sequoia Capital, Accel, Lux Capital, Gradient Ventures, and angel investors Eric Schmidt and Michael Ovitz. "New vulnerabilities are discovered daily, and continuous monitoring, threat hunting, and response are needed for around-the-clock efforts to secure the enterprise. Our goal is to plug these gaps, while simultaneously strengthening organizations' overall security stack via capturing, storing, and analyzing all executable files across their environment," said Mike Wiacek, CEO and founder of Stairwell.
Cyberinsurance startup Elpha Secure, headquartered in New York, has raised $20 million in Series A funding, led by Canapi Ventures, with participation from AXIS Capital, EOS Venture Partners, Fermat Capital Management, The Hartford STAG Ventures, State Farm Ventures, and Stone Point Ventures. The company says the funding will be used to drive business growth and improve product features.
New Jersey growth equity investment firm Edison Partners has led a $30 million investment round for global cybersecurity company Field Effect. Field Effect will use the funds for sales and marketing, focusing on channel and brand, as well as product and service evolution and commercial operations.
Endor Labs, a California company focused on helping companies manage dependencies, has emerged from stealth with $25 million in seed funding, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Dell Technology Capital, and Sierra Ventures, as well as angel investors. Co-founder and CEO Varun Badhwar said, “Eighty percent of the code in modern applications is code your developers didn’t write but depend on through open source packages. When our founding team was leading the Prisma Cloud engineering group at Palo Alto Networks, we realized the true magnitude of this issue. Having previously created the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, this team knows how to take on next generation threats. Our mission now is to enable OSS to live up to its true potential without introducing unnecessary risk. It’s exciting to once again take a new approach to the market, and we believe these solutions will radically enhance application development everywhere.”
Boston-based identity threat detection and response startup Oort has raised $15 million in seed and Series A funding, led by .406 Ventures and Energy Impact Partners (EIP). .406 Ventures partner Greg Dracon said, “Compromised credentials and poorly-configured access controls are among the biggest security risks to today’s enterprise. Oort’s platform puts identity first to help IT and security teams immediately contain identity sprawl and secure vulnerable user accounts.”
French cybersecurity company CrowdSec has raised €14 million in Series A funding, led by Supernova Invest with participation from Breega. The company says they plan to use the funds to “combat cybercrime by strengthening our position as the world’s largest crowdsourced CTI network in the world.”
Zero trust access platform provider Cyolo, headquartered in Tel Aviv, has received a new investment from IBM Ventures. IBM will also provide cybersecurity expertise and technical resources for the company. “With IBM’s investment in Cyolo, we’ll continue our focus to make sure clients can break down silos and quickly provide secure access across the distributed environments,” said Ben Daniels, IBM Ventures Partner.
Executive moves.
Strata Identity has appointed Chris Veith as the company’s Senior Director of Global Alliances.
Shift5 has appointed Robert Sison as the company’s Chief Financial Officer.
eSentire has made two new additions to its Board of Directors: Amit Mital and John Becker.
Aware has appointed Debasish Biswas as the company’s Chief Technology Officer.
ForgeRock has named Reno Maglitto as the company’s new ANZ channel chief.
Zscaler has announced that CEO Amit Sinha has resigned from his position, effective Oct 21, 2022. He will remain on the Board of Directors.
Armorblox has appointed Andrew Rubin to the company’s Board of Directors.
Embroker has named David Derigiotis as the company’s Chief Insurance Officer.
Baffle has appointed Joe Dillon as the company’s Executive Vice President of Sales.
Contrast Security has made three new hires, as well as the promotion of an industry expert: Tracey Mead has been appointed as Vice President, Strategic Alliances, System Integrators; Rachael Mott has been appointed as Senior Director, Strategic Alliances, Technology Partner; Frank Gasparovic has been appointed as Principal Solutions Architect; and Ram Yonish has been appointed as Vice President of EMEA Alliances.
Vade has appointed Mike Pate as the company’s Vice President of Sales, Americas.
Company news.
Washington Technology reports that Iron Bow Technologies has been awarded a potential five-year, $743 million contract from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) for software support services to the Pentagon’s “Fourth Estate.” Iron Bow will be the “lead integrator of Cisco hardware and software products with responsibility for upkeep and modernization efforts,” said DISA.
Seeking Alpha reports that HII announced a mento-protege venture with Markesman Group to support the Department of Defense. The company is named Tuple, and HII said, “Tuple was formed under the U.S. Small Business Administration mentor-protégé program, which allows eligible small businesses to gain capacity and win government contracts by partnering with more experienced government contractors like HII, which serve as mentors."
Intelligence Community News reports that Spanish cybersecurity company CounterCraft has been awarded a contract from the US government of up to $26 million for active cyber defense. David Barroso, CounterCraft’s CEO and co-founder, said, “It is clear that we are the active cyber defense and threat intelligence partner of choice for some of the most sophisticated organizations in the world; from governments to critical infrastructure to Fortune 500 companies. This award validates that our technology is highly needed and tremendously valued by our customers.”
Our condolences on the passing of Tim Dowling, founder and CEO of Halo Security.
Tim Dowling, founder and CEO of Halo Security, passed away on August 21st, falling to a rare form of pancreatic cancer at the far-too-young age of just 59. The last company he founded, Halo Security, had just emerged from stealth during his final illness, and now stands as his monument in the security sector. We wish his family, friends, and colleagues comfort and consolation in their mourning.