Insight Partners acquired cybersecurity startup Armis for $1.1 billion.

Venture Capital and private equity firm Insight Partners said Monday that it would acquire Israeli cybersecurity startup Armis at a valuation of $1.1 billion, said The Jerusalem Post.

Though Insight did not disclose the sale price, it will pay it in cash. Alphabet’s private equity arm, CapitalG, will participate for $100 million, while certain existing stockholders will rollover holdings.

The transaction is the biggest acquisition so far of an Israeli cybersecurity firm.

Armis cybersecurity

Armis counts global organizations such as Allergan, Mondelez, Oracle, and Sysco Food among its clients.

Its cloud-based software instantly assesses the threat environment for all devices connected to the company’s network, including Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices.

Bad actors today do not stop at attacking computers, laptops, and phones. They have become sophisticated enough to hack into unmanaged smart devices such as medical devices, industrial robots, and home controllers.

Armis, therefore, protects the client’s data and systems in real-time by immediately quarantining devices that are compromised.

Insight Partners-Armis: The growing threat of threat-prone IoT devices

“One of the biggest challenges keeping CIOs and CISOs up at night is how to secure the unmanaged devices proliferating through their businesses, from manufacturing floors to hospital rooms, from airports to boardrooms,” said Izrael, the chief technology officer of Armis.

“These devices – capturing and creating business-critical information – have no protection, and they need a security solution.”

“At Armis, we do the same thing – crowdsourcing devices. We built each behavioral profile for each device – what it should do, what it did 30 and 60 days back, and when it breaks out of the profile and creates an anomaly,” Izrael added, as quoted by HAARETZ. “In that case, we can block it. In total, we have 10 million profiles in the catalog that cover 250 million active devices worldwide.”

“Armis is one of the most ground-breaking enterprise data-centric security solutions that is actively protecting modern businesses today,” said Jeff Horing, Insight founder. “Armis has established themselves as the leader in the enterprise IoT security space, and we believe this team and their technology will continue to transform the way unmanaged devices are secured.”

Deal spawns dozens of new millionaires

According to Gili Raanan, Armis’ chairman, the transaction will create 30 to 40 millionaires (in dollars). Raanan is also a general partner in Sequoia Capital.

“Every employee will benefit, even an employee who’s been with us for two weeks,” said Yevgeny Dibrov, co-founder and CEO, Armis.

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