Investment company Thoma Bravo set its sights on British security company Darktrace. The transaction amount of the possible acquisition is unknown at this time.
Darktrace CEO Poppy Gustafsson released a statement to confirm that the company is in talks with Thoma Bravo about a possible acquisition. According to Gustafsson, the talks are in the early stages. There’s no guarantee that an acquisition bid will be made. Thoma Bravo has until September 15 2022 to make an offer or end the talks.
Darktrace’s tech
Darktrace provides a security platfom for finding threats within corporate networks, cloud environments, employee endpoints and other systems. The platform uses software-based sensors to understand the tasks each system performs in day-to-day operations.
AI models detect breaches based on anomalous actions mapped by the sensors. Whenever a potential threat is mapped, the platform isolates the suspect system from the rest of the environment to limit malicious activity.
Thoma Bravo has been investing heavily in security companies in recent years. The company acquired Ping Identity, SailPoint Technologies and Anaplan this year. Proofpoint was bought in 2021.
Different light
Darktrace has a turbulent history. The company has close ties to its 2013 founder, British software entrepreneur Mike Lynch. The software entrepreneur was charged with conspiracy and fraud after selling his former company to HP.
The company is known as Autonomy and fetched €11.4 billion ($11.6 billion) in a 2011 acquisition deal with HP. After the acquisition, HP discovered that Autonomy was ridden with undisclosed financial issues. The issues incurred costs for HP.
Tip: Thoma Bravo acquires Ping Identity for 2.8 billion euros
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