Israel’s CyberArk inks deal to buy US startup for up to $175 million
CyberArk says acquisition will add automation tools to its identity security platform to help businesses mitigate unwanted user access and lower the risk of sensitive data leaks
Sharon Wrobel is a tech reporter for The Times of Israel
CyberArk Software, the second most valuable Israeli firm traded on Nasdaq, announced on Thursday that it bought US-based Zilla Security in a deal worth up to $175 million to bolster its identity security platform with automation tools.
Under the terms of the transaction, CyberArk will pay $165 million in cash to acquire Zilla Security and $10 million subject to the achievement of future milestones.
Traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange since 2014 with a market cap of almost $20 billion, CyberArk specializes in identity security, including privileged accounts on corporate servers, to help businesses protect sensitive data and critical infrastructure against external attackers and malicious insiders.
Boston-based Zilla Security is the developer of a software platform that automates and manages the processes of identity compliance and provisioning to integrate both, commonly used and custom applications.
With this acquisition, CyberArk seeks to augment its identity security platform with Zilla Security’s AI-powered automated solutions to be able to “secure every identity – human and machine – with the right level of privilege controls,” across digital environments.
“As enterprises navigate the proliferation of privilege in complex identity landscapes, modern capabilities become critical for protecting digital assets and maintaining business agility,” said CyberArk CEO Matt Cohen. “By expanding the CyberArk identity security platform with Zilla’s modern capabilities, we will reshape identity governance with scalable automation that delivers compliance and helps maximize security for the modern enterprise.”
The cybersecurity market continues to face new challenges with the fast emergence and adoption of AI-powered tools and software by businesses and organizations as they move to cloud services and hybrid working environments, which in turn has expanded their threat landscape and attack surface.
All this has created an explosion of identities by people, whether they are employees, third-party users, or customers, using many devices to connect to a network. In parallel, the digital transformation and the ongoing migration to cloud services have led to an increase in the use of non-human applications or identities, such as machines, bots, and workloads.
CyberArk noted that before the digital transformation and migration of businesses to cloud environments, identity governance solutions were “built primarily for on-premises environments, relying heavily on manual processes with slow, time-consuming deployments that leave organizations stalled.”
“What worked 20 years ago clearly doesn’t work today,” said Zilla Security co-founder and CEO Deepak Taneja. “Zilla represents a fundamental shift in how organizations can manage identity governance and administration (IGA).”
“By harnessing the power of AI, we’ve automated IGA, making it simpler, faster and more cost-effective.
Founded in 1999, CyberArk has more than 4,000 employees globally, of which about 1,000 work at the firm’s headquarters in Petah Tikva and R&D center in the southern city of Beersheba. The firm’s customers include almost 10,000 global corporations, of which over 50 percent are Fortune 500 companies.
CyberArk announced the acquisition alongside its earnings results. The cybersecurity firm crossed the $1 billion revenue mark in the full year of 2024, rising 33 percent year-over-year from $751.9 million in 2023. Subscription revenue amounted to $733.3 million in 2024, an increase of 55% from the $472 million recorded a year earlier.
