This morning, New York time, IT security company Palo Alto Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: PANW) announced that is acquiring Cyvera Ltd. for $200 million, most of which is in shares. According to the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 56%, or $112 million, of the acquisition is in Palo Alto shares, and the rest is in cash.
Although Palo Alto Networks was founded by an Israeli, Nir Zuk, who serves as its CTO, the acquisition will enable it to open its first development center in Israel.
Although this is not an especially big deal, it can be seen as representative of the current cyber market. Cyvera was founded less than three years ago, has almost no income, and raised some $13 million, some of which is probably still in its reserves. Its main investors are Blumberg Capital and Battery Ventures, as well as strategic investor EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC). The most prominent private investors are Prof. Ehud Weinstein and Dr. Ofir Shalvi, two of the three founders of Anobit, which was sold to Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: APPL).
Cyvera was founded by co-CEOs Netanel Davidi and Uri Alter, and Moshe Ben-Abu. The company focuses on the hotter side of information security, advanced persistent threats (APT) or zero-day attacks. These are threats that are inserted into computers by countries or terrorist or criminal organizations, and are not usually identified by traditional information security systems.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 24, 2014
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