San Francisco, NFAPost: French aerospace and defence group Thales announced acquisition of cybersecurity company Imperva from Thoma Bravo in a deal worth $3.6 billion.
The news comes four years after private equity giant Thoma Bravo acquired Imperva for $2.1 billion, taking the San Mateo-based company private eight years after it had gone public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
Founded in 2002, Imperva is a data and application security company with services spanning web application firewalls (WAFs), API security, DDoS protection, account takeover (ATO) protection, data activity monitoring (DAM), and more.
Thales has expended considerable resources in recent years bolstering its cybersecurity offerings through acquisitions. This includes a $5.5 billion deal in 2017 to procure Gemalto, a company offering digital identification and data protection for industries such as banking. And more recently it acquired both Excellium and and S21SEC, deals which closed last year. Thales is also in the process of acquiring Australian cybersecurity startup Tesserent, in a deal worth $176 million (AUD).
Thales Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Patrice Caine said the acquisition of Imperva marks a major milestone in Thales’ cybersecurity strategy.
“With this acquisition, we are seizing a unique opportunity to accelerate our cybersecurity capabilities and are taking an important step towards our ambition to build a world-class global cybersecurity integrated player, providing a comprehensive portfolio of products and services. We have tremendous respect for Imperva’s innovative application and data security offerings,” said Thales Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Patrice Caine.
He also said Imperva and Thales share the same vision and the same DNA and are thrilled to enter the next phase of their growth together.
“We look forward to welcoming Imperva to Thales to further enhance our cybersecurity solutions, and help customers address their most important digital security challenges,” said Thales Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Patrice Caine.
With Imperva under its wing, this signals Thales entry to the application security market specifically, while it’s also now expanding its existing footprint in the data security sphere.
Thales said that with Imperva on board, its total cybersecurity business will generate north of €2.4 billion ($2.65 billion) in revenues, with Imperva contributing some $500 million itself.
About Thales
Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies within three domains: Defense & Security, Aeronautics & Space, and Digital Identity & Security. It develops products and solutions that help make the world safer, greener and more inclusive.
The Group invests close to €4 billion a year in Research & Development, particularly in key areas such as quantum technologies, Edge computing, 6G and cybersecurity. Thales has 77,000[1] employees in 68 countries. In 2022, the Group generated sales of €17.6 billion.
1 Excluding Transport business, which is being divested
Thales in Cybersecurity
With more than €1.5bn in sales generated in 2022 through an extensive cyber portfolio, Thales counts over 4,000 cybersecurity experts in over 20 countries, including 11 Security Operation Centers globally. It serves cybersecurity customers in more than 50 countries.
