CyberArk Buys Thoma Bravo-Backed Venafi For $1.5B

CyberArk Software began the week with an M&A splash, agreeing to buy machine identity company Venafi for $1.5 billion.

The deal involves approximately $1 billion in cash and $540 million in CyberArk shares.

The price marks a 34% increase from Venafi’s valuation back in late 2020, when private equity giant Thoma Bravo made a growth investment valuing it at $1.15 billion.

Other investors in the Salt Lake City-based company include TCV and Foundation Capital.

The deal is the largest this year for a private cybersecurity company, per Crunchbase data.

The deal helps CyberArk — one of the most valuable cyber companies in the world — delve deeper into the growing area of machine identity security. Machine identity has become a hot topic in cyber as mobile and distributed workforces have led to a proliferation of machines on networks and a widening amount of endpoints.

CyberArk estimates the deal expands its total addressable market by nearly $10 billion.

More deal-making

It’s been a busy few weeks in the cyber sector for Thoma Bravo, which just bought Darktrace for a cool $5.32 billion in cash last month.

In general, investors are remaining bullish on deal-making for cyber startups. At the annual RSA Conference in San Francisco two weeks ago, many VCs and private equity investors said there has been significantly more “chatter” about potential deals.

One reason is that several large companies have socked away vast amounts of cash as M&A has slowed in recent quarters. Tech giants like Nvidia have watched their cash reserves balloon during that time.