Here are some of the most prominent venture capital and merger and acquisition news items from December. If you’d like SDxCentral to report on your company’s VC or M&A activity in our monthly Money Moves section, or if you have any tips on that activity, please send the information to Julia King ([email protected]).

As tech companies tighten their belts and announce massive layoffs, security companies, especially the powerhouses, still reported strong earnings for the last quarter. They benefitted mainly from heightened cyberthreats, digital/cloud transition, and vendor-consolidation trends, as well as the mission-critical nature of cybersecurity. However, they are not immune to the economic downturn.

The stocks of CrowdStrike, Fortinet, and Rapid7 plunged after their earnings reports mostly due to the disappointing guidance and outlook misses. Read more.

Palo Alto Networks prefers two kinds of companies for its acquisitions: One is those with a net new capability but no integration needed; the other is those with a technology that can complement the security giant’s existing products, like its latest acquisition – Cider Security. The common theme is they have to be best of the breed, Chairman and CEO Nikesh Arora claims.

“Across the board, we probably spent $4 billion on about 17 companies since I’ve been here. And I’d say most of them are working,” Arora told the press during the vendor’s recent Ignite event. “Forty-percent of companies are a net new capability that didn’t require integration, 60% require integration. And we had a common theme … to buy the No. 1 or two in the industry.” Read more.

AMD acquired both Xilinx [$49 billion] and Pensando [$1.9 billion] in 2022, and according to Ruth Cotter – SVP overseeing marketing, human resources, and investor relations of the expanding enterprise – the acquisitions have been driving successful innovation and diversity.

The expansion marks AMD’s efforts to use its 5G network processor support to tap further into sectors like data centers, embedded computing, and telecom. Read more.

Twelve Labs raised a $12 million seed extension.

Rezonate exited stealth with $8.7 million in funding.

SPHERE Technology Solutions announced a $31 million Series B investment led by Edison Partners.

AlgoSec acquired Prevasio.

Drata announced a $200 million Series C funding round.

Wasabi Technologies announced a $15 million Series D funding round.

Interpres Security exited stealth with $8.5 million in seed funding led by Ten Eleven Ventures.

ngrok announced $50 million in Series A funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Proofpoint acquired Illusive.

Snyk announced a $196.5 million Series G funding round.

Nerdio announced a $117 million Series B funding round led by Updata Partners.

MariaDB joined the NYSE under the ticker (NYSE:MRDB).

CyberCube announced $50 million in growth capital.

Arcadia raised $125 million in new funding led by Magnetar Capital.