Israeli startup Meta Networks has made a successful exit. The company has been sold for $120 million to US cybersecurity company Proofpoint, Inc., (NASDAQ: PFPT). Meta Networks, which was founded two and a half years ago, has raised $10 million since then from the BRM Capital and Vertex Ventures venture capital firms. It was founded by serial entrepreneur Etay Bogner, who serves as CEO, Alon Horowitz, and Shmulik Ladkani.
Proofpoint which has a market cap of some $7 billion, announced the deal last night. It will pay $111 million in cash and $9 million in its shares, and the deal is expected to close during the current quarter. Proofpoint already has a development center in Israel, set up on the basis of the $55 million acquisition of FireLayers in late 2016.
Meta Networks has developed a private cloud network service, that is, a cloud platform that communicates with an enterprise and its employees, with all enterprise applications connected to it, on the basis of zero trust network access (ZTNA).
"As cyber attacks primarily target people, and organizations continue to move their infrastructure to the cloud, the compromise of a single user all too often leads to a full enterprise breach. Limiting employee and contractor access to only authorized resources, rather than the entire corporate network, is a critical control in a people-centric security model," said Proofpoint CEO Gary Steele. "By combining Meta Networks’ innovative zero trust network access technology with our people-centric security capabilities, Proofpoint will make it far simpler for enterprises to precisely control employee and contractor access to on-premises, cloud, and consumer applications. We are thrilled to welcome Meta Networks employees to the Proofpoint team."
Proofpoint says that it intends to integrate Meta Networks’ ZTNA technology with its cloud access security broker (CASB) and web isolation product lines to offer customers a comprehensive cloud access and security platform, and that the acquisition of Meta Networks will add approximately 20 technical contributors to its team in Israel.
"Protecting people and resources beyond the traditional perimeter is perhaps the most critical security requirement in the cloud era," said Etay Bogner. "Together with Proofpoint, we will continue to realize a security vision that adapts to the way both threats and infrastructure are moving: to the cloud. Proofpoint is at the forefront of this transformation and we are very excited to become a part of an incredible team."
Bogner began his entrepreneurial career in 1999, with the founding of SofaWare, a netwrok security compant that was acquired by Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP). He went on to found two more companies: Neocleus, which was acquired by Intel for a reported $1 million (after $20 million had been invested in it); and cloud technology company Stratoscale.
Proofpoint states that it is considering the repatriation of acquired intellectual property associated with this acquisition which - if executed - would result in a one-time cash income tax expense during the third or fourth quarter of the year.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on May 7, 2019
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