Motorola Solutions paid $32 million and $40 million -- $72 million total -- to acquire two MSSP- and cybersecurity-focused businesses in 2020, the company revealed in a 10-K filing with the SEC today (February 12, 2021).
The MSSP valuation multiples based on EBITDA were not revealed. Also, Motorola Solutions did not disclose the names of the acquisitions in the filing. But it's a reasonable bet that the combined $72 million price tag involved buying Delta Risk and LunarLine, two deals that were quietly disclosed without any financial details in 2020.
In the February 12, 2021, SEC filing, Motorola Solutions says the two unnamed acquisitions provided the buyer with such capabilities as:
- vulnerability assessments;
- cybersecurity consulting;
- managed services;
- remediation and response capabilities; and
- security monitoring of network operations.
Motorola Solutions is best-known as a mission critical communications provider that serves first responders, public safety, municipality and business customers.
Motorola Solutions: Gradually Expanding MSSP Services
In a Motorola Solutions earnings call on February 4, 2021, the company focused most of its managed services comments on video-oriented security services. When an analyst asked for more information about the MSSP push, Motorola Solutions' Executive VP Kelly Mark told call participants:
"So the cybersecurity services that we offer right now and the ones that we also expanded last year with a couple of acquisitions will focus around monitoring, in incident resolution and helping our customers understand the risk profile of what they have installed both in their command center and in their LMR networks. So our initial focus is on those core areas that we provide our products around, specifically the LMR networks, as I said, in the command center. We'll look to expand to their critical networks that they may need to manage their operations. So it's pretty focused right now but something that our customers are very interested in because those are obviously the most critical assets that they need to protect and make sure they're always up and running."
MSSP Mergers and Acquisitions: M&A Deal List and Recent Activity
Meanwhile, M&A activity within the MSSP market remains strong. At least six MSSPs were acquired during the first six weeks of 2021 -- including private equity firm Apax Partners buying Herjavec Group, a Top 250 MSSP founded and led by Shark Tank angel investor Robert Herjavec.
Here's a complete list of more than 50 MSSP M&A deals from 2018 through present.
