The rumors were true. Palo Alto Networks confirmed it will acquire container security company Twistlock for $410 million and serverless security startup PureSec for an undisclosed amount.
The vendor announced the two new acquisitions just minutes before it reported its fiscal third quarter 2019 earnings, and earlier in the day it launched a new cloud security suite called Prisma.
On an earnings call with investors, Nikesh Arora, chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, pledged to integrated Twistlock and PureSec into the Prisma portfolio “as soon as possible.”
Container, Serverless Security“Today [customers] are talking about containers,” he said. “If you look at the market there are only two companies [securing containers] and Twistlock was by far the leader.” It’s safe to assume the second container security company Arora is referencing is Aqua Security.
Twistlock has raised more than $63 million since its founding in 2015, while Aqua, also founded in 2015, has raised $100 million.
When asked what the Twistlock acquisition means for the broader container security sector, Dror Davidoff, co-founder and CEO of Aqua Security, in an email said it “provides validation that container/cloud-native security is in fact a separate solution and one that customers view as critical to their environments. The acquisition price is very high for a space that is still only about 4 years old, and a major security player demonstrated with their checkbook that the early movers have a significant advantage (or they would have tried to develop it themselves).”
Arora, on the earnings call, also explained why Palo Alto Networks set its sights on serverless.
“The next conversation [with customers] is serverless, and PureSec is by far the leader [in serverless security],” Arora continued. “We intend to integrate this as soon as possible thereby offering a fully integrated cloud security suite.”
PureSec, founded in 2016, has raised $10 million in a Series A and seed rounds.
Buying Spree Cuts Into EarningsThe latest purchases cap off a buying spree that brings Palo Alto Networks’ total to seven, beginning with LightCyber for $105 million in early 2017. Most recently, it paid $560 million for security, orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) startup Demisto in February.
In March 2018, it purchased public cloud security and compliance startup Evident.io for $300 million. A month later it bought endpoint data collection and visualization firm Secdo. And in October 2018, it acquired public cloud security startup RedLock for $173 million.
But the security vendor admitted that the purchases are going to hurt its earnings in the current quarter, which sent Palo Alto Networks shares falling about 5% in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
For the fourth quarter, Palo Alto Networks forecast adjusted earnings of $1.41 to $1.42 a share on revenue in the range of $795 million to $805 million, representing year-over-year growth of 21% to 22%. But it said the outlook includes the impact of about $15 million in net expense, or a charge of about 12 cents per share, related to the Demisto purchase and the planned Twistlock and PureSec acquisitions.
Meanwhile, total revenue for the fiscal third quarter of 2019 grew 28% year over year to $726.6 million. The company also reported a net loss of $20.2 million for the third quarter, compared to a $40.4 million net loss last year.
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