6. Private Equity Firms Scoop Up Eight Vendor Giants
Insight Partners kicked off the private equity acquisition spree in January with its announced buy of IoT security startup Armis at a $1.1 billion valuation. A month later, Advent International agreed to buy IoT security firm Forescout for $1.9 billion. Advent then sued Forescout in May to walk away from the deal, and the two sides settled on a $1.4 billion acquisition in July just five days before a trial was set to begin.
Also in February, Dell agreed to sell encryption pioneer RSA Security to STG Partners for $2.08 billion. A month later, application security testing vendor Checkmarx agreed to be bought by Hellman & Friedman for a $1.15 billion valuation. Then in September, Warburg Pincus invested in Vista Equity-controlled Infoblox in a deal valuing the network identity appliance provider at $3 billion, Bloomberg said.
That same month, GI Partners agreed to buy digital identity vendor Sectigo for $900 million, PE Hub reported. In October, defense contractor Raytheon signed a deal to sell cybersecurity subsidiary Forcepoint to tech-heavy private equity firm Francisco Partners. Two months later, Thoma Bravo bought a majority stake in machine identity management software provider Venafi at a $1.15 billion valuation.