NetSPI has acquired nVisium to enhance its offensive security solutions and address heightened demand for human-delivered penetration testing, the companies announced in a prepared statement. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
This is technology M&A deal number 144 that MSSP Alert and sister site ChannelE2E have covered so far in 2023.
A Closer Look at NetSPI and nVisium
NetSPI, which specializes in enterprise penetration testing and attack surface management, is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has 418 employees listed on LinkedIn.
nVisium, a Falls Church, Virginia-based company focused on security testing, has 33 employees listed on LinkedIn.
With the acquisition, NetSPI now has more 450 offensive security experts globally who can support and scale to meet the needs of current and future clients. As NetSPI CEO Aaron Shilts explained:
“Our decision to acquire nVisium comes down to one core factor: acquiring amazing talent. We’re bringing two brilliant, culturally-aligned and complementary offensive security teams together who are committed to delivering the highest standard of penetration testing on the market today. I’m excited to see what nVisium and NetSPI can accomplish together.”
nVisium CEO Joins NetSPI Leadership Team
Jack Mannino, nVisium co-founder and CEO, joins NetSPI’s senior leadership team. Mannino founded nVisium in 2009 “on the foundation of inventing new and more efficient ways of protecting software and scaling secure development in the software development lifecycle.”
Mannino described the advantages to the partnership with NetSPI:
“NetSPI’s market leadership and people-first culture are a natural complement to what we’ve built at nVisium. We’re all-in on the mission to help organizations keep pace with their ever-evolving attack surface. By joining forces with NetSPI, we have a massive opportunity to expand the breadth and depth of solutions we deliver, improve the client experience, and introduce new growth opportunities to our employees.”
Fresh Funding Triggers Growth
NetSPI recently added $410 million in funding from global investment firm KKR, as reported by MSSP Alert. The company previously secured $90 million in growth funding led by KKR in May 2021.
KKR’s investment comes after NetSPI has made several moves to accelerate its growth in 2022:
- Launching a channel partner program that allows MSSPs and MSPs to use its technologies to deliver offensive security services
- Releasing two open-source tools to help defense, identity and access management (IAM), and security operations center (SOC) teams identify vulnerable network shares and network threats
- Appointing security industry veterans Steve Bakewell, Steve Armstrong and Eric Graves to lead its EMEA team
- Upgrading its AttackSim breach and attack simulation (BAS) platform
- Launching its Attack Management platform
