French conglomerate Thales has acquired cybersecurity company Imperva from private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $3.6 billion. US-based Imperva was founded in Israel in 2002 and has a development center here. Thoma Bravo completed the acquisition of Imperva in January 2019 for $2.1 billion.
Thales reports that it expects Imperva's 2023 annual revenue to be over $500 million with EBITDA of $110 million.
Imperva was founded by Shlomo Kramer, Mickey Boodaei and Amichai Shulman, who are no longer active in the company. Imperva moved its headquarters to the US in 2012 after its Nasdaq IPO, although it was delisted by Thoma Bravo. Today the company has 1,400 employees worldwide including 500 in its Tel Aviv development center.
Most of the company's product development staff are in Israel headed by Imperva Israel general manager Moshe Lipsker, who along with dozens of other senior and veteran employees are expected to exercise options worth millions of dollars.
The Israeli Tax Authority will also profit from the deal through capital gains tax on the options of employees and managers, as well as if Thales requests to transfer to France, or any other country, some of Imperva's intellectual property that is still in Israel. Imperva has over 100 patents, some of which, according to estimates, are still registered in Israel.
Imperva's products protect critical applications, APIs and data anywhere at scale. With an integrated approach combining edge, application security and data security, Imperva protects companies through all stages of their digital journey.
The company's Israeli founders, who no longer even have any shares in Imperva, have all gone on to found startups in more innovative areas of cybersecurity. Kramer founded Cato Networks, which is engaged in network communictions security in the cloud. Boodaei founded Transmit Security, a unicorn which raised over $500 million for managing identity through biometrics, and Shulman founded Nokod several months ago, which is developing cloud applications built in artificial intelligence-based development processes.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 25, 2023.
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