Thoma Bravo takes a stake in threat intelligence provider Intel 471

Private equity giant Thoma Bravo has taken a stake in Intel 471, a provider of cyberthreat intelligence for enterprises and governments.

The strategic growth investment, which comes as organizations double down on cybersecurity amid a pandemic-fueled rise in cyber threats, will enable Intel 471 to evolve its product suite, broaden its go-to-market strategy and continue to “aggressively pursue innovation,” according to Thoma Bravo. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Intel 471, a Texas-based firm founded in 2014, takes a preventative approach to cybersecurity. It leverages its access to forums and dark web marketplaces to equip organizations with intelligence and monitoring on threat actors and malware attacks. Using the company’s platform, businesses can track threat actor activity and vulnerability exploits, analyze near-real-time monitoring of malware activity, trace threats that could cause security breaches and receive alerts on compromised credentials.

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“As cybercriminals and their tactics become increasingly sophisticated, our monitoring and intelligence solutions have become mission-critical, with organizations of all sizes looking to us to help them protect against attacks,” said Mark Arena, CEO of Intel 471.

Arena, along with fellow co-founder Jason Passwaters, will continue to lead Intel 471 and will retain a “significant” ownership position

Thoma Bravo’s investment in Intel 471 sees the private equity firm continue its cybersecurity investing spending-spree. Its recent $12.3 billion purchase of Proofpoint, for example, said to be the largest acquisition in cybersecurity history, trumps Broadcom’s $10.7 billion purchase of Symantec, Intel’s $7.6 billion acquisition of McAfee and Okta’s proposed $6.5 billion acquisition of Auth0.

Thoma Bravo also previously acquired Sophos for $3.9 billion, took a majority stake in LogRhythm and paid $544 million for authentication startup Imprivata. 

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