AAA AT&T to lift AlienVault in acquisition deal

AT&T to lift AlienVault in acquisition deal

Telecommunications firm AT&T agreed yesterday to purchase US-based cyber threat detection and response software provider AlienVault, enabling Intel Capital, the corporate venturing arm of semiconductor technology producer Intel, to exit.

Although the companies did not disclose the acquisition price, a person familiar with the matter told Axios that AT&T is paying in the “high $500 millions to low $600 millions” in cash.

Founded in Spain in 2007, AlienVault has built a cybersecurity software platform called Unified Security Management that utilises frequently updated data from Open Threat Exchange, a cyber threat intelligence repository with some 80,000 participants.

The deal will help AT&T expand its enterprise-grade cybersecurity offering, which targets small and medium-sized business customers. The corporate agreed last month to acquire another company, online advertising platform AppNexus, for a reported price of about $1.6bn.

AlienVault has raised $116m in total, having most recently closed a $52m round in 2015 led by Institutional Venture Partners and backed by Trident Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and GGV Capital.

Intel Capital invested $3.5m in the company’s $30m series D round, which closed in 2013 with funding from GGV Capital, Trident Capital, KPCB, Sigma West, Adara Venture Partners, Top Tier Capital and Correlation Ventures.

The company’s investors also include telecoms service provider Teldat Group, which participated in a $4m round in 2010 led by Adara Venture Partners and backed by the European Union and Spanish government-backed Neotec.

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