Armis Sign Biggest Ever Israeli Cybersecurity Deal
The Internet of Things (IoT) security market is tipped for rapid growth, and deals in this sector are coming thick and fast.
A new record was set last week when New York private equity firm Insight Partners announced plans to acquire IoT security firm Armis in the biggest ever Israeli cybersecurity deal, worth $1.1 billion.
The Palo Alto-based Armis makes software to protect IoT devices – like smart medical infusion pumps and robots for car production lines – from the ever-present threat of cyberattack. Customers include electronics giant Samsung, pharmaceutical firm Allergan, and a range of other Fortune 500 companies.
Insight Partners first invested in Armis in a funding round in April 2019, and were later joined by Google, which committed several million dollars in November 2019. Now Insight will be taking Armis fully under its wing in a bid to fully benefit from the firm’s growth.
“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, ” said Jeff Horing, Managing Director at Insight. “Armis has established themselves as the leader in the enterprise IoT security space and we believe this team and their technology will continue to transform the way unmanaged devices are secured.”
The deal, which comes in the same week as Insight announce the $5 billion purchase of cloud data-management startup Veeam, is indicative of a growing trend of private equity firms investing in disruptive technologies like IoT, AI, machine learning, and blockchain.
Private equity deal-making in these verticals has pushed up significantly over the last few years as investors have taken advantage of low interest rates to capitalise on the next wave of new technology.
Just last month, the IoT segment saw another bumper deal as tech-focused private equity firm LLR Partners bought a majority stake in industrial IoT tracking company Geoforce.
