Strategic merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the cybersecurity segment increased in Q1 2019 with 147 transactions completed totaling $5.3B in overall deal value, according to Momentum's Cybersecurity Market Review Q1 2019.
The quarter saw mixed year-over-year results: Value (42 M&A transactions totaling $3.3 billion) slid 28 percent from the same period last year but volume (105 financing transactions for $2 billion) amounted to a 32 percent bump from the year prior. More deals involving managed security service providers (MSSPs) were done during Q1 2019 than any other segment Momentum tracked.
Notable financing transactions
Of the $2 billion in financing volume in Q1 2019, here are the top deals:
- Rubrik: $261 million
- Cloudflare: $150 million
- 360 Enterprise Security Group: $131.2 million
- Onelogin: $100 million
- Contrast Security: $65 million
- Illumio: $65 million
- Shift Technology: $60 million
- Cato: $55 million
- KnowBe4: $50 million
- eSentire: $47.6 million
Notable M&A transactions
Of the $3 billion in M&A value in Q1 2019, here are the top deals:
- Carbonite acquired Webroot: $618.5 million
- Palo Alto Networks acquired Demisto: $560 million
- Perforce bought Rogue Wave: $480 million
- NTT Security bought WhiteHat: $315 million
- GBG acquired IDology: $300 million
- Zix bought AppRiver: $275 million
- Symantec bought Luminate: $170 million
- Orange bought Secure Data: $157 million
- Akamai bought Janrain: $125 million
- ACL bought R-sam: $100 million
Here are additional high points from Momentum’s report:
Public Market Valuations
- Q1 2019 continued the upward trend line from the prior quarter with public security stocks rising 19 percent.
- There were no Cybersecurity IPO’s in Q1 2019.
- Crowdstrike, Palantir, Tufin, and Ping Identity are expected to go public in 2019.
M&A Activity
- The most active sectors in Q1 2019 were MSSP (5), application security (4), network & infrastructure security (4), and security consulting (4).
- Related: Example MSSP Mergers and Acquisitions List.
Financing Activity
- Total financing activity is on par with Q1 2018 but volume has doubled.
- More than 75 percent of Q1 2019 financing volume was from later stage financing (Series B & above).
- The most active sectors in Q1 2019 were: Risk & compliance (14), network & infrastructure security (13), and identity & access management (9).
