With the acquisition of Imperva, Thales wants to change its status in cybersecurity

After the Australian company Tesserent, Thales continues to make its market in cybersecurity. But this time, the flourishing French defense electronics group has really pulled out the checkbook. He has just put on the table $ 3.6 billion to buy Imperva from the investment company Thoma Bravo, which had offered itself in 2018 the company for $ 2.1 billion.

This takeover, “a key step” according to Patrice Caine, the boss of Thales, must raise the French industrialist to the rank of “world leader” in computer security. In addition to synergies of 110 million euros, Thales believes that its activities are highly complementary with those of Imperva.

2.4 billion euros in cyber security

The firm thus plans to bring its IT security activities together around three main pillars, identity, data security and application security. Themes then declined in security products for companies and critical customers, such as the States, as well as in “a complete suite of services.”

So many products and services gathered within Thales Digital Identity and Security (DIS) that should allow the company to achieve a turnover in cybersecurity of approximately 2.4 billion euros. An objective, however, conditioned on the agreement of the regulatory authorities on this acquisition.

Founder of Check Point

Specializing in application security and data security, Imperva is based in California. The company’s portfolio brings together solutions for firewalls, protection against denial-of-service attacks, or data management to counter data leaks.

Known at its creation under the name of WebCohort, the company had been launched by one of the founders of Check Point, Shlomo Kramer. The firm, which counts a third of the “Fortune 100” companies – the one hundred largest American companies – as clients, achieved more than 500 million euros in sales in 2022 and finally has about 1,400 employees.