Cybersecurity supplier Darktrace to be acquired by Thoma Bravo for $5.3B

Darktrace plc, a serious supplier of cybersecurity software program for enterprises, in the present day introduced that it has agreed to be acquired by Thoma Bravo in a $5.3 billion transaction.

The all-cash deal values Darktrace at $7.75 per share, a 20% premium over its final unaffected inventory value. Thoma Bravo says KKR and different shareholders with a mixed 14.4% stake within the software program maker have agreed to again the transaction. To shut the deal, the non-public fairness agency will want the help of Darktrace traders with no less than 75% of the corporate’s shares.

“Thoma Bravo has been investing solely in software program for over twenty years and we’ll deliver to bear the total vary of our platform, operational experience and deep expertise of cybersecurity in supporting Darktrace’s progress,” stated Thoma Bravo companion Andrew Almeida.

Darktrace launched in 2013 and went public on the London Inventory Alternate eight years later. As we speak, the corporate says that greater than 9,400 organizations use its flagship product, a cybersecurity platform known as the ActiveAI Safety Platform. The software program makes use of synthetic intelligence to dam cyberattacks throughout cloud environments, worker gadgets and know-how belongings. 

One subset of the platform’s options focuses on serving to firms repair safety weaknesses of their infrastructure. In response to Darktrace, its algorithms can spot not solely code vulnerabilities but additionally circumstances the place an enterprise is likely to be inclined to social engineering assaults. Cybersecurity groups can use the software program to launch simulated campaigns and consider how workers reply.

After detecting a cyberattack, the ActiveAI Safety Platform can robotically take steps to dam it. The software program is able to taking actions resembling stopping malicious file downloads with out handbook enter from directors. In response to Darktrace, cybersecurity groups even have entry to AI-generated automation workflows for recovering programs focused by hackers.

The corporate’s platform produces an incident report about each cyberattack it spots. The report particulars what actions the hackers took, in what order and which programs had been affected. Cybersecurity groups can use that knowledge to tell their breach remediation efforts, in addition to determine methods of enhancing their firm’s incident response workflows.

Elevated buyer demand for Darktrace’s software program boosted its income by 26.5% year-over-year final quarter, to $176.1 million. The corporate additionally raised its forecast for its present fiscal yr ended June 30. This monetary momentum, which Darktrace partly credited to a current revamp of its go-to-market technique, possible contributed to the 20% premium Thoma Bravo has supplied for its shares.

The non-public fairness agency beforehand sought to accumulate Darktrace in 2022. No deal was signed as a result of the software program maker discovered Thoma Bravo’s provide to be too low.

The acquisition is about to shut within the second half of 2024. From there, Thoma Bravo will make investments to reinforce Darktrace’s cybersecurity capabilities and develop its market presence. The non-public fairness agency stated that there will probably be “no materials restructurings or adjustments to Darktrace’s Cambridge, U.Ok. headquarters” and its different enterprise operations.

Thoma Bravo added that it’s going to use its “M&A experience to develop” the corporate’s cybersecurity platform, which means that it plans to reinforce the software program by means of acquisitions. Darktrace has made solely as soon as acquisition since launching: the €47.5 million buy of Cybersprint B.V. in 2022. Netherlands-based Cybersprint developed a platform designed to assist firms discover and repair vulnerabilities of their infrastructure.

Photograph: London Inventory Alternate/Twitter