It sounds like another M&A deal is about to go down in the world of cybersecurity. Sources tell TechCrunch that Crowdstrike is in advanced negotiations to acquire Bionic.AI — a security posture management platform for cloud services — for between $200 million and $300 million.
A deal has yet to be closed, but investors are confident enough that they’re chattering. Bionic.ai — with roots in Israel but headquartered in Palo Alto — has to date raised $82 million, although its last round was more than a year ago. Its investors include Insight Partners and Battery Ventures, and its customers include the likes of Chipotle, Freddie Mac and Transamerica.
On the plus side of a deal going through, Crowdstrike has been an active M&A player in Israel lately. Most recently, it acquired Reposify in September 2022. On the other side, there could be other suitors. A source tells us Microsoft — another big acquirer in the country — had also been looking at Bionic and so that could delay or even derail the deal.
An acquisition here would underscore the moving target that is cybersecurity: in short, as malicious actors become more sophisticated in their approaches, those protecting networks and IT assets need to as well.
Crowdstrike’s business focuses on endpoint security, threat intelligence and breach response services, and within that it already covers security posture management, which essentially provides security operations teams with a bird’s eye view of a company’s tech and IT landscape to identify vulnerabilities (and appropriately, Crowdstrike’s service is branded “Falcon”).
Bionic would bring an advanced level of observability: the company says that it focuses on providing advanced security posture management specifically for deployed applications running in production; whole application architectures and related dependencies that might represent opportunities for attacks, even as they evolve or ‘drift’ within the network; and application data flows.
We have reached out to a Crowdstrike spokesperson, and to Bionic CEO and co-founder Idan Ninyo for comment. (And as we were writing this story, Calcalist also ran a story so it seems there really is some chatter going on.) We will update this post as we learn more.
Cybersecurity continues to be one of the more resilient areas in the tech landscape amid a wider downturn in venture funding and overall dealmaking.
“Israel is internationally recognized as a powerhouse in the cybersecurity domain, with numerous cybersecurity startups, established companies, research institutions, and government initiatives,” said Avihai Michaeli, a partner at PwC focusing on M&A activity. He notes that in recent years, around 40% of the private global investment in cybersecurity funding rounds went to Israeli startups.