Thoma Bravo adds $1.5bn in value to Imperva before selling to Thales

Thales has reached an agreement with software investment firm Thoma Bravo to acquire application security provider Imperva for $3.6 billion.

One of the largest software investors in the world, Thoma Bravo bought Imperva for $2.1 billion in 2019, saying at the time its aim was to build a “market-leading data and application security company”. Imperva’s sale to Thales marks an addition of $1.5 billion in value to Imperva in the last four years. 

With more than $127 billion in assets under management, Thoma Bravo invests in growth-oriented, innovative companies in the software and technology sectors. 

Over the last couple of years, the company has been on an acquisition spree, snapping up a host of businesses – including Coupa Software, UserTesting, ForgeRock, SailPoint, Ping Identity, and more. Imperva is one of just a small number of businesses to be sold by Thoma Bravo in the past three years.

Seth Boro, managing partner at Thoma Bravo, said Imperva differentiated itself under its ownership through “accelerated growth and innovation” and its “unique approach” to end-to-end application and data security.

“During this time, the company successfully executed three acquisitions which strengthened its product offerings and capabilities to better protect clients’ critical data and applications,” he said.

Thales’ plans for Imperva

Upon completion of its acquisition, Thales said Imperva will enable growth in data security, as well as its entry into the application security market. 

The firm expects Imperva’s integration to add around $500 million of revenue, as well as “significantly expand” its data and application security offering. Overall, Thales said its cyber security business will generate more than €2.4 billion ($2.65 billion) in revenue.

“The acquisition of Imperva marks a major milestone in Thales’ cyber security strategy,” said Patrice Caine, chairman and CEO at Thales. “With this acquisition, we are seizing a unique opportunity to accelerate our cyber security capabilities and are taking an important step towards our ambition to build a world-class global cyber security integrated player, providing a comprehensive portfolio of products and services.”

The freshly combined operations of the two businesses will create a cyber security portfolio structured around three areas: identity, data security, and application security. 

Thales said increased capabilities are expected in the fields of protecting data at rest and data in use, while the pair’s “strong complementarity and cultural fit” is expected to yield “significant commercial opportunities”. 

Imperva will sit within the global security products section of Thales’ offering, which focuses on the CipherTrust Data Security Platform, the SafeNet Trusted Access Identity & Access Management as a service solution, as well as the broader cloud protection & licensing offerings.

“Imperva and Thales share the same vision and the same DNA,” Caine added. “We look forward to welcoming Imperva to Thales to further enhance our cyber security solutions, and help customers address their most important digital security challenges.”

Thales has placed a significant focus on cyber security in recent times. Last month, the company announced an agreement to acquire Tesserent in a move designed to bolster its cyber security services family of products and services, as well as extend its presence in Australia and New Zealand.

From January 2024, Thales said it plans to regroup all its civil cyber activities within its digital identity and security (DIS) segment to strengthen its position as a provider of civil cyber security products.

Following the acquisitions of Imperva and Tesserent, Thales added that global cyber security products and services will represent 44% of its DIS segment sales in 2024 –a 60% increase. 

What is Imperva?

Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Imperva’s aim is to protect critical applications, APIs, and data at scale, with an approach that combines edge, application security, and data security. 

The company has a global footprint in the Americas, Asia Pacific, as well as EMEA, and monitors threats across 180 countries.

Imperva’s portfolio includes its web application firewall (WAF), as well as its Data Security platform that helps to enhance the visibility of a company’s data to prevent breaches and avoid compliance issues. 

The platform provides data discovery and classification, data security governance, data access monitoring, AI-powered risk analysis, intrusion detection, and more.