Proofpoint to Be Acquired by Thoma Bravo for $12.3B

Private equity firm Thoma Bravo has agreed to acquire cybersecurity company Proofpoint for $12.3 billion in an all-cash transaction, the two confirmed today.

Proofpoint was founded in 2002 by Eric Hahn, former CTO of Netscape, to help organizations defend against email-based security threats. Since then, its technology has expanded to address cloud security, archiving and compliance, security awareness training, and other security issues. 

Proofpoint has expanded geographically as well: It's headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., but its 3,600 employees are spread across Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Proofpoint went public in 2012 and last year reported $1.05 billion in revenue.

This acquisition will see Proofpoint go private. Chairman and CEO Gary Steele anticipates this will allow the company to "be even more agile with greater flexibility to continue investing in innovation, building on our leadership position and saying ahead of threat actors," he says in a statement.

Thoma Bravo has added several cybersecurity companies to its portfolio in recent years. Its notable acquisitions include Veracode for $950 million, Imperva for $2.1 billion, and Sophos for $3.9 billion, as well as Imperva, McAfee, LogRhythm, Venafi, Blue Coat, Barracuda, DigiCert, Imprivata, and Idaptiv.

Proofpoint has also completed several acquisitions, including those of InteliSecure, Wombat Security, ObserveIT, NetCitadel, Cloudmark, Meta Networks, and Weblife.

Its agreement with Thoma Bravo has been unanimously approved by Proofpoint's board of directors, which has recommended company shareholders vote in favor of the acquisition at an upcoming shareholders' meeting.

Read the full release for more details.