Security company Darktrace has agreed to a takeover by investment company Thoma Bravo. The deal should be completed in the second half of the year.
Thoma Bravo is highly engaged with the security sector. Others in its current portfolio include Sophos, Proofpoint, Ping Identity and Venafi. Investments have repeatedly led to the successful resale of such companies, as was true of Barracuda Networks. Thoma Bravo bought that company in 2017 for about 1.5 billion euros, but sold it for nearly 4 billion euros to KKR in 2022.
Darktrace looks set to be incorporated for $5.32 billion (4.95 billion euros). 14.4 percent of shareholders have already agreed at this valuation, but Thoma Bravo needs to convince 75 percent in the coming quarters, Bloomberg reports.
Back in 2022, the two sides tried to reach a deal for the British company, founded in 2013. However, Thoma Bravo walked away when it appeared it could not reach a deal with Darktrace.
Darktrace: AI with security
Darktrace characterizes itself somewhat differently than many other security companies. When we spoke with SVP Cyber Innovation Pieter Jansen earlier this year, he described Darktrace as an AI company with a focus on security, not the other way around. It is a subtle, yet meaningful distinction, with the term “Cyber AI” being used to describe this specific market strategy.
Read more: “Darktrace has no competition, only partnerships”
Given Thoma Bravo’s track record, we should expect Darktrace to be able to continue proclaiming this story under its own banner. The investment company explicitly focuses on long-term growth and value creation (who doesn’t), but has also put its money where its mouth is over the year. This is evident through success stories like the deals for Barracuda Networks. Another example is Imperva, which was bought for less than 2 billion euros in 2018 and sold to Thales for 3.35 billion late last year.
In any case, the announcement has already sent Darktrace’s shares up 18 percent in value today.
