NortonLifeLock, formerly known as Symantec, has agreed to buy German antivirus company Avira from the Bahrain-based Investcorp Technology Partners. The deal is reportedly worth about $360 million and will be all-cash.
The acquisition will most likely close in the first quarter of 2021. As with such deals, some things need to be ironed out, with regulatory obligations and customary closing conditions playing a considerable role in the agreement’s success.
Avira CEO, Travis Witteveen and the CTO, Mathias Ollig, will become part of the NortonLifeLock leadership team when the deal is completed. NortonLifeLock hopes that the acquisition will help it scale up its international expansion in markets where it doesn’t have much of a presence.
Avira’s strong userbase
Avira already has a strong customer base in the EU, as it is famous for its freemium business model, which gives users free security software. The free software is installed on more than 30 million devices, with more than 1.5 million paying customers.
Avira has been in operation since its founding in 1986 in Germany by Tjark Auerbach. It peaked in 2012, with a userbase of more than 100 million devices.
Auerbach then sold Avira to Investcorp in April 2020, in a deal worth $180 million.
Avira’s rocket-fast value
NortonLifeLock was founded in November 2019, when Broadcom bought Symantec’s enterprise security assets in a $10.7 billion deal. Now, NortonLifeLock manages the old consumer-facing portfolio Symantec used to run.
This deal is an excellent addition to NortonLifeLock, as it will bring in more than 30 million active users to the Norton userbase.
Avira’s company value appears to have doubled since it was acquired from Auerbach not too long ago. The Norton family can only hope that the additional customers will expand its security portfolio to generate significant revenue.
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