Radware Ltd. (Nasdaq: RDWR) has accumulated a lot of cash in recent years. Despite investors' expectations, however, it has not made large acquisitions. The company today announced an acquisition, although it does not appear to be a large one for Radware. Radware is acquiring Indian company ShieldSquare, which Radware says is a leader in the global bot management industry.
Radware provided no details about the price of the deal, but it is believed to be in the $15-20 million range. As of the end of the third quarter of 2018, Radware had $382 million in cash. The deal is slated for completion during the first quarter of 2019.
Radware's share price rose 17% last year, pushing its market cap up to $1 billion, although it is 19% below its peak in August. The company provides accessibility solutions, high-level performance, and security for organizational communications networks, computer centers, and apps.
Radware says that ShieldSquare's cloud-based anti-bot solutions help online businesses distinguish between human and non-human traffic on websites, mobile apps, and application program interfaces (APIs). According to research company Forrester, ShieldSquare, which was founded in 2014, is one of the three leading companies in its field, providing solutions for detecting attacks, research on threats, reporting, and analysis. Radware will offer ShieldSquare's bot-management service together with its product for preventing attacks under its new Radware Bot Manager product line. The addition will enable Radware to offer its customers advanced protection against developing and automated attacks.
"Comprehensive protection for apps"
Radware president and CEO Roy Zisapel says, "This acquisition allows us to expand our portfolio with robust bot management solutions that strongly fit our strategic goal to continue and deepen our integrated portfolio, organically and inorganically. Bot management can stand alone as product offerings as well as integrate into our suite of attack mitigation solutions. We chose ShieldSquare because of their strong technology synergy, advanced machine learning capabilities, and the opportunity to expand Radware’s existing cloud security services. These Bot-Management services along with Radware’s Cloud WAF services offer comprehensive protection of applications. We are excited to welcome the ShieldSquare team into the Radware family."
Radware CTO David Aviv says, "More than 50% of the Internet traffic today comes from bots, and while we’ve seen an increase in bot-based attacks in recent years, ‘good’ bots still play an important role in applications’ operations. As such, organizations need to look for bot management solutions that not only effectively detect and mitigate bot attacks, but also can accurately distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bots in real-time."
Radware currently has an R&D center in India with 120 employees, which is likely to increase to over 200 employees with the new acquisition.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 7, 2019
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