Security Vendor Shopping Spree Continues for HelpSystems
June 9, 2021 Alex Woodie
HelpSystems quietly nabbed two more security software vendors last month, Agari and Beyond Security, just days after it brought on a new investor, a private equity firm called Harvest Partners Structured Capital.
The deal to bring in Harvest Partners SCF, LP was announced on May 6, when HelpSystems announced that a definitive agreement has been signed for HP SCF to take a minority stake in the company, joining existing investors TA Associates, Charlesbank Capital Partners, HGGC, and HelpSystems employees.
HP SCF principal Chris Peyser, who will take a place on HelpSystems board, lauded the Eden Prairie, Minnesota, company for its “compelling, cross-platform solution suites in cybersecurity and automation software” and its “talented leadership team.”
Less than a week later, HelpSystems announced a deal to spend some of its accumulated capital on Beyond Security, a Roseville, California-based company that specializes in developing tools for automatically scanning complex networks and applications for security vulnerabilities.
Beyond Security was known for its beSECURE automated vulnerability detection system (AVDS), an appliance-based offering that can be used to find security bugs in customers’ systems. The company says AVDS is a vulnerability analysis and mapping (VAM) offering that’s “trusted by thousands of companies and governments.”
The company also develops and sells beSOURCE, which provides static application security testing (SAST), as well as beSTORM, which it bills as an “enterprise ready, multi-protocol fuzzer” that can discover code weaknesses in any protocol or piece of hardware.
“HelpSystems’ global footprint and resources will empower us to continue to advance our vulnerability detection capabilities and afford our customers the opportunity to benefit from HelpSystems’ extensive security and automation solution stack,” Aviram Jenik, Beyond Security’s co-founder and CEO, said in a press release.
Two days after the Beyond Security deal was announced, on May 13, HelpSystems announced the acquisition Agari, a Foster City, California company that specializes in protecting companies against email-based threats, including phishing and business email compromise (BEC) scams.
Agari develops a collection of offerings intended to help prevent various attacks and scams from hitting employees’ in boxes, including spear phishing and advanced email threats. The company’s tools are based on the Agari Identity Graph, which it dubs the “deep data science” powering all of its offerings.
The company says that, thanks to “the power of advanced machine learning” and shared security data, it’s able to act upon the analysis of trillions of messages send across 500 million Internet domains to detect evolving threats.
“We have found the perfect home in HelpSystems, with its dedication to supporting organizations in their efforts to achieve a holistic approach to email and data security,” Patrick Peterson, the founder and CEO of Agari, said in a press release.
The deals represent the fourth and fifth acquisitions of the year for HelpSystems, and the 10th straight security-related acquisition of the past two-and-a-half years. Starting with its acquisition of Core Security in February 2019, HelpSystems nabbed a string of security firms, including Clearswift (December 2019), Strategic Cyber (March 2020), TITUS (June 2020, Boldon James (June 2020), Vera (December 2020), File Catalyst (January 2021), and Digital Defense (February 2020), according to HelpSystems’ profile at Crunchbase.
None of the newly acquired security firms are focused particularly on IBM i, as many of HelpSystems earlier security-related acquisitions were, including PowerTech, Bytware, SafeStone Technologies, Skyview Partners, and Linoma Software. But then again, that doesn’t necessarily mean that none of the acquired IP won’t help bolster IBM i security, as there are many aspects of information security that are platform neutral.
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