SecurityWeek counted 28 cybersecurity-related M&A announcements in May 2024. The month’s reported deals ranged from multimillion-dollar acquisitions to planned mergers and smaller transactions whose financial terms were not disclosed. Announcements describe plans or agreements at the time; they do not, by themselves, confirm that a transaction later closed.
Eduard Kovacs’s SecurityWeek roundup, published June 4, 2024, is the source for the count and deal details below. It also says more than 400 cybersecurity-related M&A deals were announced in 2023; it does not give an exact total. Read the SecurityWeek roundup.
What were the largest reported transactions?
SecurityWeek highlighted several transactions with disclosed figures. The amounts are not directly comparable: some were reported as deal values, one as an enterprise valuation, one as an investment, and Exabeam’s figure was a prior valuation rather than a stated merger price.
| Transaction | Reported figure and type | Capability or stated rationale | Announcement wording |
|---|---|---|---|
| Akamai–Noname Security | $450 million; reported acquisition value | Expand Akamai’s API security offering and scale sales and marketing. | Akamai agreed to acquire Noname Security. |
| CyberArk–Venafi | Approximately $1.54 billion: $1 billion in cash and $540 million in CyberArk shares. | Acquire a machine identity management company from Thoma Bravo. | CyberArk entered a definitive agreement to acquire Venafi. |
| Hg–AuditBoard | More than $3 billion; reported acquisition value. Separately, Hg announced an £87.2 million ($111 million) investment in AuditBoard. | Audit, compliance, and risk management. | Hg agreed to acquire AuditBoard and also announced the investment. |
| Synopsys Software Integrity Group | $2.1 billion; reported sale value. | Application security testing. The business was expected to operate independently after closing. | Synopsys agreed to sell the group to Clearlake Capital and Francisco Partners. |
| Permira–BioCatch | $1.3 billion enterprise valuation. | Digital fraud detection and financial crime prevention. | Permira agreed to acquire a majority stake. |
| LogRhythm–Exabeam | Exabeam’s most recent valuation was reported as $2.5 billion; this was not identified as the merger’s deal value. | Security information and event management (SIEM). | LogRhythm announced plans to merge with SIEM rival Exabeam. |
What other notable capabilities changed hands?
- Palo Alto Networks and IBM QRadar SaaS: Palo Alto Networks agreed to acquire IBM’s QRadar SaaS assets. The companies said they would facilitate migration of QRadar customers to Cortex XSIAM after the transaction completed.
- Drata and Oak9: Drata bought the infrastructure-as-code security firm, extending its compliance monitoring proposition from pre-deployment into production contexts.
- Cloudflare and BastionZero: Cloudflare acquired the seed-stage startup to expand its VPN-replacement and Zero Trust Network Access capabilities for infrastructure access.
- Bugcrowd and Informer: Bugcrowd acquired the UK provider of external attack surface management and penetration testing, complementing its own pentesting and attack surface management offering.
- Crane NXT and OpSec Security: Crane NXT reported completing its acquisition of the brand protection and authentication solutions provider. It renamed its Crane Currency segment Security and Authentication Technologies.
- Lumifi Cyber and Netsurion: Lumifi acquired the managed XDR provider and said it would support Netsurion’s customers through its SOC and SHIELDVision platform.
- OpenText and Pillr: OpenText acquired the cloud-native, multi-tenant managed detection and response (MDR) platform provider serving managed service providers.
What were the other 14 announcements?
SecurityWeek’s remaining entries were Abissi–Aspisec; Air IT–SoConnect; Bertrandt–Centum Digital; Bernhard–Apogee; Boomi’s acquisition of APIIDA’s federated API management business and assets from Cloud Software Group; CyEx–Simpluris; Dataprise–Hooks Systems; Databarracks–PlanB Consulting; Fifosys–TMB; ISSQUARED–CCT; Network Coverage–MadWolf Technologies; Reveald–rThreat; SHI International Corp.–Locuz Enterprise Solutions Limited; and TELUS–Vumetric. The roundup does not provide comparable financial terms or detailed rationales for these entries.
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How to interpret the deal count and values
- 28 is the roundup’s tally: SecurityWeek counted 14 highlighted transactions and 14 additional announcements for May 2024.
- Announcement is not completion: Most entries describe an agreement or plan at announcement time. The source specifically reports completion for Crane NXT’s OpSec acquisition; the other announcement language should not be read as proof of closing.
- Dollar figures use different measures: A purchase or sale value, an enterprise valuation, a separate investment, and a company’s previous valuation do not mean the same thing. In particular, Exabeam’s $2.5 billion most recent valuation is not the stated value of the LogRhythm merger.
- Coverage is uneven: The roundup names all 28 announcements, but it supplies figures and strategic detail for only some. Undisclosed terms should not be inferred from the companies’ size or business area.
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