At a glance.
- Accenture acquires Redkite.
- Xalient acquires Grabowsky.
- SimSpace secures $45 million.
- Halcyon raises $40 million.
- SEC disclosure rules take effect.
- A challenge to OpenAI.
Mergers and acquisitions.
Identity and access management provider Okta is acquiring Israeli identity security posture management platform provider Spera for approximately $100 million, Calcalist reports.
Accenture has acquired UK-headquartered data consultancy Redkite. Accenture stated, "Redkite brings a full breadth of capabilities, from data strategy, to architecting and implementing modern data platforms. Redkite’s team of more than 230 professionals will join Accenture’s Data & AI practice in the UK."
London-based identity and access management firm Xalient has acquired digital identity advisory and managed services provider Grabowsky. The company stated, "With a significant presence in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg markets and a strong customer base in both public and private sectors, Grabowsky brings extensive identity capabilities, which include identity governance and administration (IGA), privileged access management (PAM), and customer identity access management (CIAM)."
Reuters reports that Airbus is in talks to buy Atos's cybersecurity business BDS. Airbus and Atos declined to comment.
Investments and exits.
Boston-based cyber range provider SimSpace has secured $45 million in an equity raise led by L2 Point Management. The company's CEO, William Hutchison, stated, "The $45 million investment from L2 Point Management will serve as a milestone of growth at SimSpace, bolstering our ambitions to enter new markets around the world while allowing us to significantly accelerate the pace of our customer acquisition."
Anti-ransomware endpoint protection firm Halcyon has raised $40 million in a Series B round led by Bain Capital Ventures. The company stated, "The new capital will be used to expand the company’s engineering, R&D, and sales functions. Halcyon is aggressively targeting enterprise clients across all verticals with a specific focus in education, financial services, and healthcare."
Origin AI, a Maryland-based startup that uses WiFi signals for motion sensing, has raised $15.9 million in a Series B extension led by Verisure, with participation from Okinawa Electric Power Company, Verizon Ventures, and INSPiRE. The company says "[t]he fresh capital will be strategically utilized to broaden the company's product offerings and significantly grow its commercial business, thereby providing enhanced solutions to a wider customer base."
Maryland-headquartered Turngate, a company that "offer[s] IT and cybersecurity professionals unprecedented insights into user activity," has secured $5 million in a seed funding round led by Paladin Capital Group. The company says the "seed funding round will be critical in building out and scaling Turngate’s solution for commercial customers."
Executive moves.
Noname Security has appointed Yossi Dagan as Chief Financial Officer, Einat Idan as Chief of Staff, and Arie Sholomon as Vice President of Rese arch and Development.
Securonix has hired Biju Muduli as Chief Marketing Officer.
Cymulate has added Lee Weiner, former Chief Innovation Officer at Rapid7, to its board of directors.
Portal26 has appointed Sanjay Srivastava to its Generative AI Advisory Board.
SEC disclosure rules take effect.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) cybersecurity disclosure rules took effect on Monday. The rules require publicly traded companies to disclose cybersecurity incidents within four business days after the company determines an incident to be material.
Colorado-based apparel company VF Corporation (owner of Vans, North Face, and other major brands) reported a material cyberattack to the SEC on the first day the rules went into effect, the Record reports. VF stated, "The threat actor disrupted the Company’s business operations by encrypting some IT systems, and stole data from the Company, including personal data. The Company is working to bring the impacted portions of its IT systems back online and implement workarounds for certain offline operations with the aim of reducing disruption to its ability to serve its retail and brand e-commerce consumers and wholesale customers."
Fortunes of commerce.
OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman has said that another breakthrough of unknown character would be needed before anyone could achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), that is, AI that's effectively indistinguishable from natural human intelligence. Speaking at a Hawking Fellowship Award event at Cambridge University on November 1st, Altman said, "If a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project.”
VERSES AI says they're the ones who can do it. In an open letter to OpenAI, VERSES says its Active Inference approach is the breakthrough Altman is looking for. Active Inference, VERSES says, "can reason, learn, plan, predict and act in real-time." We will watch with interest the outcome of their challenge to OpenAI.