Image: © Funtap/Stock.adobe.com
Insight is snapping up Armis, which provides cybersecurity solutions for the growing number of unmanaged, connected IoT devices.
On Monday (6 January), IoT enterprise security start-up Armis announced that it will be acquired by Insight Partners, a global software investor, in a bid to further strengthen its market dominance in unmanaged device security.
Under the terms of the acquisition, Insight will acquire Armis for cash at a valuation of $1.1bn, with participation from CapitalG for $100m and rollover from certain existing stockholders.
Founded in 2015 by Nadir Izrael, Tomer Schwartz and Yevgeny Dibrov, Israeli cybersecurity business Armis raised approximately $112m prior to the acquisition, according to Crunchbase. Armis will continue to operate independently and will be managed by Dibrov, who serves as CEO, and Izrael, who is the company’s CTO.
Jeff Horing, managing director at Insight Partners, said: “Armis is one of the most groundbreaking enterprise data-centric security solutions that is actively protecting modern businesses today.
“Having achieved exponential growth to date, we are proud to be the partner Armis can leverage to help execute their vision of protecting unmanaged devices proliferating every vertical around the world.”
The market opportunity
Commenting on the deal, Dibrov said: “Insight is one of the most sophisticated software investors in the sector, and it is due to the depth of their domain expertise that they really understand the enterprise IoT device challenge we are looking to solve, and the size of the market opportunity.
“We considered growth rounds and strategic offers, but by partnering with Insight, we have the best of both worlds – operational support and independence, both of which were important in our decision to take on a scale-up partner this early in our company journey.
“We are thankful for the support we received from our investors at Sequoia, Tenaya, Bain and Red Dot. And we, as well as the whole Armis team, are very excited to have Insight working alongside us as we enter this next phase, accelerating our platform and growth.”
According to Gartner, there’s set to be 25bn connected devices on the planet by 2021. However, Armis says that with the IoT boom comes a new set of challenges, particularly with unmanaged and ‘un-agentable’ devices that have no security and represent one of the fastest growing areas of attack for organisations, with attacks tripling in 2019.
Protecting IoT devices
Armis expects that in 2021, 90pc of all devices will be unmanaged and unsecured, which would dramatically increase potential vector points for attack, creating a security gap within businesses and organisations.
Izrael said: “One of the biggest challenges keeping CIOs and CISOs up at night is how to secure the unmanaged devices proliferating through their businesses, from manufacturing floors to hospital rooms, from airports to boardrooms.
“These devices – capturing and creating business critical information, working on production lines or administering patient care – have no protection and they need a security solution. The exponential growth of Armis to date illustrates just how critical securing unmanaged devices is for businesses.
“With the backing of Insight, we will continue to expand our world-class technology to help identify devices, track their behaviour and respond to the threats that target them.”
Insight managing director Teddie Wardi added that “in a world of unmanaged devices, Armis’ technology is a game changer”. Meanwhile, Gili Raanan, chair of Armis and general partner at Sequoia Israel and CyberStarts, said: “Armis is the largest Israeli cybersecurity acquisition of a private company ever and this is an important milestone in the Armis journey, building a substantial stand-alone cybersecurity powerhouse.”
Horing, Wardi and Raanan will be serving on the board of directors for Armis following the acquisition.
