Mitsubishi Electric’s acquisition of Nozomi Networks will see the operational technology (OT) cybersecurity vendor become a wholly owned subsidiary. But Nozomi CRO Kevin Isaac insists the company’s independence is key to making the deal work.

“There have been a number of acquisitions which haven’t worked as well as they could have because they’ve tried to be ingested into a business and in doing that, the acquiree has lost its identity and its purpose,” Isaac told SDxCentral. “It’s clear that that doesn’t work … the fact that we’re operating as a wholly owned subsidiary, able to operate completely on our own, is vital.”

That independence, he argued, is fundamental for Nozomi’s role in a heterogeneous OT environment.

“Mitsubishi competes with the likes of Schneider [Electric]. But the point is, if we want to maintain that heterogeneity and that independence to be able to provide to customers the outcomes they want, we can’t actually be focused on just one, because it would lose our value proposition completely,” Isaac explained.

Culture and partner impact

Isaac joined Nozomi shortly after Mitsubishi Electric was among the investors in Nozomi’s $100 million Series E funding round in 2024.

He told SDxCentral that Nozomi’s culture and technology were two of the reasons he joined the company, in addition to being some of its biggest strengths.

“I think some companies are known for their marketing, some companies are known for their sales … I think what we’re known for is really great technology and a great culture, which is why I think the market likes us so much," Isaac said.

Both parties have been working together since the Series E investment, with Isaac revealing Nozomi has been “quite impressed” with how its prospective parent operators.

“Nothing is done quickly and nothing’s done hastily. So we can get this right and we set our path, it’s going to be something which we can bank on as we go forward,” Isaac added.

For partners, he outlined that continuity is the main message.

“The rest of the partner ecosystem are interested in how we’re going to drive this, because they want to know that they’ve got a sustainable investment," Isaac said. "A lot of them have invested a lot in service, support, training, and they want to make sure that they’ve got a future-proof business in terms of all of that investment that they’ve made.”

Isaac also spoke about OT’s slow shift toward cloud adoption, suggesting that, compared to cybersecurity, the segment was “20 years behind.”

“It’s come from an on-premises environment and moving very quickly to the cloud. So we have platforms both on-premises and in the cloud still," Isaac said. "And the reason for that is government and critical national infrastructure require us to be able to do things on-premises when they’re not prepared to go to the cloud. I think the cloud is coming. It’s inevitable.”

To make that shift viable for critical industries, Nozomi is pursuing compliance across multiple geographies. The CRO said Nozomi is working toward regulatory standards, with the firm looking to gain FedRAMP certification in the U.S. to add to its existing certifications in France and Germany.

“The certification is going to be there. It's a question of how quickly customers are prepared to come across to the cloud,” Isaac said. “I don't think the platform is going to change at all with the change in ownership. The opportunity Mitsubishi Electric has is to benefit from learning about how we do things. We’re very agile and develop quickly. For a company that’s 104 years old, the opportunity to be able to learn and work with companies like ours is going to be beneficial for them.

“For us, being able to partner with people who've got such deep knowledge in building management systems, or in rail, or electrics," Isaac added. "There's a real symbiosis in terms of being able to learn from one another, whilst remaining separate.”

AI without the hype

Mitsubishi Electric’s Nozomi acquisition is one of a growing number of acquisitions across the cybersecurity vendor landscape.

F5 is purchasing CalypsoAI in a deal worth $180 million. Cato Networks has acquired Aim Security. And CrowdStrike has snapped up Pangea. There’s also some megamoney deals in the works, such as Palo Alto Networks $20 billion bid for CyberArk and Google’s ongoing efforts to buy Wiz for $32 billion.

While each vendor represents disparate parts of the vast cybersecurity landscape, one emerging trend ties several of them together: AI, or offerings and services being targeted at cybersecurity teams.

Nozomi is no stranger to AI, with its AI-powered analysis offerings helping provide improved network and endpoint visibility and threat detection.

On AI, Isaac noted that the firm is attempting to lean away from using the term, contending it’s “overused.”

“If you go look at our marketing, we don’t even use it because we think it’s overused,” Isaac said. “Having said that, if you go look at our patents, you’ll find AI everywhere for years before that. … And when you look at actually how we deploy it, we’re not deploying AI to say we’ve got AI. What we’re trying to do is solve customer problems and work backwards from there. And AI is the tool that makes it go faster.”

A key example is reducing alert fatigue.

“One of the biggest things that customers complain about is alert fatigue … the biggest threat to being able to do your job is too much information … one of the things we’ve been able to do with our AI is to use that to reduce that alert fatigue and tune the environments so that you could actually hear the signal-to-noise ratio much more effectively," Isaac said.

Two years ahead

Asked what success looks like in two years’ time, Isaac reflected on his long industry perspective: “I hope that OT has more of a seat at the table. I hope that CISOs have a better understanding of the risk, because they don’t, and I hope that we see more of a ubiquitous implementation across environments. And I hope that we’ve been able to see the blending of OT and IT much more meaningfully.”

For Isaac, the real test of Nozomi under Mitsubishi won’t be marketing, but delivery.

“We’ve never been big on marketing stories. We’ve always been good from a technology perspective, of doing what we said we’d do," Isaac said. "And I encourage the market to pay attention, because we’re going to do what we’re going to say we’re going to.”