The cybersecurity company is looking to expand its SASE platform with the acquisition of leading company Lacework, Fortinet said.
Fortinet is looking to significantly expand its cybersecurity platform with the completion of its acquisition of cloud security leader Lacework on Friday, the company said.
The terms of the deal, which was first announced on June 10, have remained undisclosed.
(Related: Fortinet's converged networks and security OS now feature GenAI and data protection)
Forrester analysts in June valued the Lacework acquisition at between $200 million and $230 million. CRN has reached out to Fortinet for comment.
That would be a fraction of the $1.8 billion in funding Lacework has raised since its founding in 2015. For several years, Lacework has been among the most valuable cybersecurity companies, with a valuation of $8.3 billion in 2021.
Lacework also marks the third company to be launched from private equity firm Sutter Hill Ventures, following the incubator model that previously produced Pure Storage and Snowflake.
Lacework’s troubles have been evident since May 2022, when the company laid off 20% of its staff just months after raising a $1.3 billion funding round. Several months before the layoffs, Lacework disclosed it had more than 1,000 employees.
Forrester estimates that Lacework’s annual recurring revenue may have been between $70 million and $90 million. That’s significantly less than its cloud security competitor Wiz, which earlier this year reported $350 million in annual recurring revenue — and is now said to be at $500 million.
For Fortinet, the Lacework deal will provide “an updated suite of integrated (albeit fragmented) multi-cloud and application security solutions for its customers,” Forrester analysts wrote in their June post.
Fortinet said in its press release on Friday that it will see a significant expansion of its capabilities through the acquisition of Lacework, a leader in cloud security and cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP).
“Combining the two companies will create the most comprehensive, AI-powered cloud security platform available from a single vendor,” Fortinet CEO Ken Shih said in a press release.
The deal includes Lacework's “advanced” technology, which is backed by 225 patents and patent applications, many of which are related to cloud security and artificial intelligence, according to Fortinet.
Fortinet has previously confirmed the opportunity to integrate capabilities from Lacework's CNAPP into its unified SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) offering.
Lacework is focused on delivering a data-driven cloud security platform that collects and analyzes data from across cloud environments and provides customers with key insights, such as threat prioritization.
Former Lacework CEO Jay Parikh was not mentioned in the press release Friday announcing the acquisition. Parikh’s LinkedIn profile indicates that his time at Lacework ended in July and makes no mention of Fortinet. CRN also inquired about Parikh with Fortinet.
Barrick was VP of Engineering at Facebook before joining Lacework in 2021.
