Check Point acquires Israeli startup Spectral to offer developer-first security

Cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. said Tuesday that it was acquiring Israeli startup Spectral, a provider of an automated code security platform geared toward developers.

The Israeli-founded firm did not disclose the financial details of the transaction, but Globes reported that the deal was estimated at roughly $60 million.

Check Point said the acquisition would deepen the company’s existing cloud solution, Check Point CloudGuard, with a “developer-first” platform and provide the “widest range” of cloud application security.

Founded in 2020, Spectral says its solution protects against harmful security errors in source code, configurations, and other assets that could lead to data breaches. Its technology integrates with major developer services such as GitHub, Google Cloud Built, AWS CodeBuild, and JFrog.

Spectral’s clients include Israeli companies SimilarWeb, eToro, and LawGeex, according to its website.

Check Point said in its announcement that accelerated digitization is pushing organizations to deploy new applications faster and, combined with a move toward a distributed environment where employees are working from anywhere, “is driving development teams to cloud-native methods, such as low code platforms.” By next year, the company said, “over 500 million digital apps and services will be developed and deployed using cloud-native approaches — the same number of apps developed in the last 40 years.”

These developments pose immediate security risks to cloud applications including data leakage, misconfigurations, and exposed secrets, and developers “require the right tools to ensure cloud security.”

“As leaders in IT security, Check Point is constantly looking at how cloud security will morph in the future so we can invest today in securing whatever comes next,” said Dr. Dorit Dor, chief product officer at Check Point Software, in a statement Tuesday. “The acquisition of Spectral further emphasizes our commitment to cloud developers.”

“Spectral’s undertaking is to enable developers to build and ship software without worry. By joining Check Point, we will be able to help more developers, across more regions, and build our community and open source offering faster and more effectively,” said Dotan Nahum, CEO and co-founder of Spectral. “The combination of Check Point’s deep cloud security capabilities and threat intelligence tools with Spectral’s best in class security tools for developers, will allow organizations to shift-left security with tools developers love and security teams trust.”

Spectral was co-founded by Nahum, formerly with Swedish fintech company Klarna and Israeli software company Como (formerly Conduit Mobile), alongside Idan Didi (COO), Lior Reuven (VP engineering), and Uri Shamay (chief architect). The company raised $6.2 million in a seed round last year and has about 16 employees.

This is Check Point’s seventh acquisition in the past three years. In August 2021, the company bought Tel Aviv-based startup Avanan, a provider of cloud email security, for a reported $270 million.