US cyber giant CrowdStrike snaps up Israeli-founded cloud security startup Bionic
Company has developed a ‘Google Maps’ security platform to help businesses protect their software applications from cyber threats
Sharon Wrobel is a tech reporter for The Times of Israel.
US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Israeli-founded cloud security startup Bionic to bolster its protection tools and help businesses mitigate application security breaches.
The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Estimates in the Hebrew press put the price tag at about $350 million.
Since it was founded in 2019 by CEO Idan Ninyo and CTO Eyal Mamo, Palo Alto-headquartered Bionic has raised about $82 million. In March last year, the startup secured $65 million in Series B funding led by New York-based venture capital firm Insight Partners, to boost investment into R&D and increase its sales and customer teams. Existing investors Cyberstarts and Battery Ventures also participated in the round.
As hybrid work has become a standard since the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are also increasingly using software applications for their day-to-day operations and the digital transformation is shifting data centers to the cloud. The rapid pace of change has also opened up more channels for sophisticated ransomware, malware attacks and other breaches calling for the need to expand security tools beyond the protection of cloud infrastructure and network on which software runs.
This is where Bionic comes in. The startup has built a so-called application security posture management (ASPM) platform, that the startup says discovers and maps all applications and data flows across cloud service providers to identify and manage critical security threats and vulnerabilities for businesses and organizations. Its customers include GSK, Armis Security and Freddie Mac.
“Bionic was founded on the core premise that when it comes to application risk, you can’t protect what you can’t see. We have built a ‘Google Maps for your Apps,’ delivering a complete picture of application security risk in a truly frictionless way that does not interfere with the development process,” said Ninyo.
“CrowdStrike has taken the mantle as the modern cybersecurity platform of choice… Its strength and scale as a market leader and innovator will help us dramatically accelerate the adoption of ASPM by every business and organization on the planet,” he added.
Cyberattacks that exploit cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities jumped by 95% in 2022 and the number of “cloud-conscious” threat actors more than tripled year-on-year, according to the CrowdStrike 2023 global threat report. In addition, the average cost of a data breach borne by businesses amounted to $4.35 million in 2023, according to a report by IBM.
“The cloud is cybersecurity’s new battleground, yet the industry’s answer to date has been disjointed point security tools or ‘platforms’ with multiple consoles and agents,” said CrowdStrike co-founder and CEO George Kurtz, “We are delivering what customers need: modern protection to address cloud security risk comprehensively, through one unified platform.”
“We pioneered cybersecurity for the cloud era, and the addition of Bionic further extends our cloud security leadership on our mission of stopping breaches,” Kurtz remarked.
The acquisition by Nasdaq-traded CrowdStrike which has a market cap of $39 billion comes after the Austin, Texas-based company bought Israeli cybersecurity startup Reposify in September last year.
The latest deal adds to a recent flurry of Israeli-founded cybersecurity startups being snapped up by global tech companies in recent months as they look to meet the fast-growing security needs of businesses but are facing a global tech funding crunch.
Last month, cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. announced the acquisition of Israeli-founded startup Perimeter 81 for $490 million and US cybersecurity company Rubrik said it is buying Israel-based startup Laminar, a data security platform provider that helps businesses and organizations monitor and protect sensitive data stored in public clouds.
In March, Cisco Systems, a US maker of networking software and hardware, said it intends to buy Israel’s Lightspin Technologies, a developer of cloud security software. Other deals include US tech giant IBM buying Israeli cyber startup Polar Security, a developer of an automated data security platform to track and protect sensitive data across hybrid cloud-based systems, and US-based cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks acquiring Cider Security.
