French Firm Buys Israeli Cybersecurity Company For $3.6B

Israeli-founded cybersecurity firm Imperva Inc. has been bought by a French aerospace and defense electronics group in a deal worth $3.6 billion.

Imperva helps organizations protect their applications and data from cyberattacks by proactively identifying, evaluating, and eliminating current and emerging threats. The company says that its platform blocks one million attacks every minute, and prevents more than 22 billion attacks a month. About 35 percent of Fortune 100 companies in areas of retail, e-commerce, healthcare, and more use Imperva’s solutions. 

The company was acquired by Thales Group, a French multinational company that develops defense and security, aerospace and space, and digital identity and security solutions and services for governments and private businesses.

Thales acquired Imperva from software investment firm Thoma Bravo, which previously bought the cybersecurity company for $2.1 billion in 2018. The deal is expected to close by the beginning of 2024. 

“Today’s announcement represents an exciting new chapter for Imperva, one that will further our mission to help organizations protect data and all paths to it, bring better protection and strategic value to our customers and partners, and create more opportunities for our team members,” said Pam Murphy, CEO of Imperva.

“We admire Thales’ vision and culture, and believe that, together, we can deliver greater product innovation and efficiency through disruptive solutions, while helping to simplify the greatest security challenges facing organizations today: protecting digital identities, applications, APIs, and data in any environment, and any industry.” 

Imperva was established in Israel in 2002 by tech entrepreneur Shlomo Kramer, who co-founded cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.  

Today, the company is headquartered in California, and has more than 1,400 employees working at 17 offices worldwide, including in Tel Aviv.