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Following the acquisition, RiskRecon will continue to provide cybersecurity solutions across a broad set of industries, including healthcare and manufacturing.
As 2019 drew to a close, Mastercard announced its plans to acquire RiskRecon in a bid to enhance the company’s cybersecurity capabilities.
RiskRecon, a Utah-based cyber risk solutions provider that was founded in 2015, uses publicly available data to construct security assessments of companies and organisations. It will now provide its artificial intelligence and data analytics solutions to financial services giant Mastercard.
Ajay Bhalla, president of cyber and intelligence for Mastercard, said: “The innovations from the talented team at RiskRecon will further accelerate our suite of cyber solutions designed to help financial institutions, merchants and governments secure their digital assets.
“Through a powerful combination of AI and data-driven advanced technology, RiskRecon offers and exciting opportunity to complement our existing strategy and technology to secure the cyberspace.”
Scaling the technology
In a statement released last week (23 December), Mastercard said that while it will be taking advantage of RiskRecon’s “pioneering scanning and evaluation technologies” to support its own solutions, the Utah-based company will continue to provide cybersecurity solutions across a broader set of industries, including healthcare and manufacturing.
Kelly White, chief executive officer and co-founder of RiskRecon, said: “Mastercard has been one of those brands that has stood out as a true innovator, focusing on the real problems of real businesses.
“By becoming part of their team, we have an opportunity to scale our solution and help companies in new industries and geographies take steps to better manage their cybersecurity risk.”
The deal is expected to close within the first quarter of 2020, subject to customary closing conditions. Neither party disclosed the terms of the deal. It was Mastercard’s final acquisition announcement of 2019, after the company made deals with SessionM, Transactis, Vyze and Ethoca earlier in the year.
According to Crunchbase, RiskRecon previously raised $40m in three funding rounds ahead of the acquisition. The latest funding round was RiskRecon’s $25m Series B, which was led by Accel in August 2018. Other investors in the start-up include Dell Technologies Capital, General Catalyst and F-Prime Capital.
