13 Jan Cybersecurity M&A Report, Vol. 2, No. 4: Billion Dollar Deals Top Mergers And Acquisitions Activity
IBM, Thoma Bravo, HCL, Blackberry, and Broadcom close the biggest deals in latest quarter
– Northport, N.Y. – Jan. 2, 2019
Cybersecurity Ventures tracks M&A deal flow covering startups, emerging players, and the largest tech vendors. Read on for activity in the most recent quarter.
December
Dec. 24. Wis@key, of Geneva, Switzerland, finalizes agreement to sell Qyovadis SSL/TLS, PKI technology business to DigiCert, of Lehi, Utah, an SSL certification company, for $45 million.
Dec. 11. Prosegur, of Madrid, Spain, a private security company, announces it is acquiring a majority interest in Cipher, of Annapolis, Md., a provider of managed security services and security consulting services. The deal is expected to strengthen Prosegur’s capabilities in the cybersecurity domain and transform its physical security business into a technology one. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Dec. 11. Jisc, of Bristol, UK, a maker of products and services for colleges and universities, including a number of cybersecurity offerings, and Eduserv, also of Bristol, which focuses on digital transformation, identity and access management, licensing, and cloud solutions for local government, public bodies, healthcare, charities, higher education and emergency services, announce they will merge on Jan.1, 2019. Companies say all staff of both organizations will be retained.
Dec. 10. HCL, of India, an IT services firm, acquires seven software platforms from IBM for $1.8 billion. HCL says deal will mean larger clientele and allow it to step up its presence in areas such as commerce, security, and marketing.
Dec. 7. Boku, of San Francisco, maker of a mobile payments platform, acquires Danal, of San Jose, Calif., a mobile security firm, for $112 million.
Dec. 5. Inside Secure, of France, a maker of contactless payment and near field communication semiconductors and software, acquires Verimatrix, of San Diego, Calif., a provider of content security for digital television services, for $143 million.
Dec. 5. Neustar, of Sterling, Va., a provider of real-time information services, closes acquisition of security services customer contracts from Verisign, of Reston, Va., a network infrastructure company. Services acquired were Distributed Denial of Service Protection, managed DNS, DNS firewall, and fee-based recursive DNS services customer contracts. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Dec. 5. ConnectWise, of Tampa, Fla., a business automation platform maker, acquires Sienna Group, also of Tampa, a managed security services provider. CEO Arnie Bellini says acquisition will enable ConnectWise to form the Cybersecurity Center of Excellence to educate Managed Service Providers on best practices of every aspect of cybersecurity. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Dec. 4. NuMSP, of Clifton, N.J., a managed services and cybersecurity solutions company, acquires Ultimate Technical Solutions, of New Orleans, a managed IT services business. Move is expected to expand NuMSP reach into the Louisiana IT services market. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Dec. 4. Netwrix, of Irvine, Calif., an IT software security company, acquires Concept Searching, of McLean, Va., a maker of semantic metadata generation, auto-classification, and taxonomy management software. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Dec. 3. Huntington Ingalls Industries, a military shipbuilding company in Newport News, Va., acquires G2, of Annapolis, Md., a cybersecurity solutions and services company. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
November
Nov. 29. VIQ Solutions, of Mississauga, Canada, an IT services company, acquires Net Transcripts, of Phoenix, Ariz., a provider of secure multi-speaker documentation services to law enforcement and criminal justice organizations, for $6.8 million.
Nov. 28. NuMSP, of Clifton, N.J., a managed services and cybersecurity solutions company, acquires Swift Systems, of Frederick, Md., a managed service provider. Move is expected to expand NuMSP reach into the Eastern seaboard SMB IT services market. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Nov. 27. — NuMSP, of Clifton, N.J., a national managed service provider offering managed IT and cybersecurity solutions, closes acquisition of Maryland-based Swift Systems, a full-service managed service provider offering comprehensive IT solutions for small and midsized businesses. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Nov. 16. BlackBerry, of Waterloo, Canada, an enterprise and IoT company, announces intention to acquire Cylance, of Irvine, Calif., a cybersecurity software business, for $1.4 billion and assumption of all unvested employee incentives.
Nov. 15. NetNordic, of Oslo, Norway, a system integrator with a specialty in network security, announces acquisition of Radpoint, of Sweden, an integrator of cybersecurity, network and secure data centers. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Nov. 11. AGC Singapore, a subsidiary of AGC Networks, of India, a solutions integration and networking company, announces acquisition of Black Box, of Pittsburgh, a provider of communications products, for about $16 million, or $1.08 per share.
Nov. 8. Data443 Risk Mitigation, of Raleigh, N.C., a data security and privacy company and subsidiary of Landstar, of Jacksonville, Fla., announces purchase of N8 Identity, of Burlington, Canada, a maker of agile, cloud-based identity governance solutions, for $3.2 million.
Nov. 8. ForeScout Technologies, of San Jose, Calif., a network security company, acquires SecurityMatters, of Eindhoven, the Netherlands, a provider of network monitoring, intelligence, and protection technologies, for $113 million.
Nov. 5. Thoma Bravo, of Chicago, a private equity firm, announces acquisition of Veracode, of Burlington, Mass., an application security company, from Broadcom, of San Jose, Calif., for $950 million.
Nov. 5. Broadcom, of San Jose, Calif., a designer, developer, and supplier of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions, announces completion of acquisition of CA Technologies, of New York City, a software maker, for $18.9 billion.
Nov. 5. Symantec, of Mountain View, Calif., a cybersecurity software and services provider, announces acquisition of Appthority, of San Francisco, a mobile security solutions company, and Javelin Networks, of Palo Alto, Calif., an artificial intelligence and cybersecurity organization. Financial terms of the deals were undisclosed.
Nov. 2. Napatech, of Copenhagen, Denmark, a provider of reconfigurable computing platforms, agrees to sell its Pandion network traffic recording product line to CounterFlow AI, of Crozet, Va., a network forensics company. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
October
Oct. 30. Qualys, of Foster City, Calif., a provider of cloud security and compliance solutions, announces acquisition of Layered Insight, of San Francisco, a software container security company. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Oct. 30. NuMSP, of Clifton, N.J., a managed services and cybersecurity solutions company, acquires Network Medics, of Minneapolis, a managed IT services provider. Move is expected to expand NuMSP reach into the Minneapolis and St. Paul IT services market. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Oct. 28. IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., announces intent to acquire Red Hat, of Raleigh, N.C., for $190 a share, or about $34 billion. Red Hat will operate as a distinct unit within IBM’s Hybrid Cloud team. The companies say their combination will allow them to help clients create cloud-native business applications faster, and drive greater portability and security of data and applications across multiple public and private clouds.
Oct. 26. South Korea based SK Telecom announces intent to acquire SK infosec, an information security subsidiary, through a stock swap.
Oct. 25. Tikehau Capital, an alternative investment and asset management group headquartered in France, acquires ACE Management, a French asset management company that specializes in the aerospace, defense, and cybersecurity sectors. Deal is valued at $6.5 million—up to 30 percent of it in newly issued Tikehau stock.
Oct. 24. Check Point Software Technologies, an Israeli cybersecurity company, acquires Dome9, also based in Israel, for $175 million, plus stock and options. Dome9 is a cloud security company.
Oct. 23. Fortinet, a cybersecurity solutions company in Sunnyvale, Calif., announces acquisition of ZoneFox, maker of a cloud-based, threat hunting platform in Edinburgh, Scotland. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Oct. 16. Temasek Holdings, a holding company owned by the government of Singapore, announces intent to acquire Sygnia, of Israel, for a reported $250 million. Sygnia says it will remain independent while cooperating with Temasek’s portfolio of companies.
Oct. 16. Kape Technologies, of London, a security software maker, acquires ZenGuard and Zenmate, both of Berlin, for €4.8 million. Zenmate is a digital privacy company focused on protecting the privacy of individuals.
Oct. 15. Nucleus Cyber, of Boston, an AI-driven data security company, announces acquisition of the Security Sheriff platform from Cyxtera Technologies, of Coral Gables, Fla., an infrastructure security company. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Oct. 14. Harris Corporation, of Melbourne, Fla., and L3 Technologies, of New York City, agree to merge, forming L3 Harris Technologies, the sixth largest defense contractor in the United States. L3 Chairman and CEO Chris Kubasik says L3’s SATCOM, secured data links, cyber intelligence, and optical communication offerings will complement Harris’s land-based global tactical communications franchise.
Oct. 11. Bitdefender. a cybersecurity company in Bucharest, Romania, closes acquisition of Redsocks Security. Netherlands-based Redsocks specializes in automated detection of suspicious network behavior and combating cybercrime. Redsocks offices and employees will become Bitdefender Netherlands. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Oct. 11. Optus Cyber Security, a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications, announces acquisition of Australian cybersecurity company Hivint for AU$23.3 million.
Oct. 10. Thoma Bravo, of Chicago, a private equity firm, announces acquisition of Imperva, of Redwood Shores, Calif., a cybersecurity software and services company, for $2.1 billion.
Oct. 9. AppRiver, of Gulf Breeze, Fla., a provider of cloud-based cybersecurity and productivity services, acquires Total Defense, of Hauppauge, N.Y., a provider of subscription-based endpoint security for consumers and small businesses. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Oct. 3. Palo Alto Networks, of Santa Clara, Calif., a multinational cybersecurity company, announces plans to acquire Redlock, of Menlo Park, Calif., maker of a security governance platform, for $173 million.
Oct. 2. Evolver and eVigilant, both of Virginia, announce merger and formation of new company called Converged Security Solutions to offer cyber and physical security services to federal and commercial customers.
Oct. 1. Optium Cyber Systems, of Woodlands, Texas, a cybersecurity consulting company, closes acquisition of Iron Man Protection, also of Woodlands, a security guard company. Acquisition made through the issuance of restricted common shares. Share value was undisclosed.
John P. Mello, Jr. is a freelance writer specializing in business and technology subjects, including consumer electronics, business computing and cyber security.
