Wednesday, May 31 2023

WatchGuard® Technologies, a global leader in network security and intelligence, advanced endpoint protection, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and secure Wi-Fi, today announced that Vector Capital, a leading private equity firm specializing in transformational investments in technology businesses, closed the deal to acquire interests previously owned by other co-investors. Under the new agreement, Vector Capital becomes the majority owner of WatchGuard and IPW, a European fund focused on investments in software companies and a previous investor in WatchGuard, retains its interest in the company.

WatchGuard has driven consistent innovation and growth in the cybersecurity space, resulting in strong financial returns for its investors, including Vector Capital. Now as the majority shareholder, Vector Capital is ideally positioned to back the next phase of WatchGuard’s growth trajectory. Investments will focus on accelerating the company’s capabilities across Cloud transformation, secure access service edge (SASE), extended detection and response (XDR), managed detection and response (MDR), and further innovation in security automation and simplification for MSPs.

“Vector Capital has been an excellent partner over the last decade, and is intimately familiar with the company, employees, partners, and our vision to be the security provider of choice to the MSP community,” said Prakash Panjwani, CEO of WatchGuard Technologies. “We have already had great successes together, and with this renewed investment, we are doubling down on empowering the MSP community with increased growth and platform innovation.” 

Vector Capital has helped guide the company’s transformation from a trusted network security vendor to a full-fledged cybersecurity platform provider. Today, the WatchGuard Unified Security Platform™ enables more than 17,000 MSPs to protect the environments, users, and networks of more than 250,000 businesses worldwide.

“We believe that WatchGuard is uniquely positioned to take advantage of two major market forces – the rise of the MSP as the dominant and fastest growing source of cybersecurity, and the maturation of platform-based security offerings that enable clients to embrace SASE and XDR functionality,” said Sandy Gill, Managing Director of Vector Capital. “The company’s success and value are testaments to the tremendous demand for MSP-delivered advanced security services. WatchGuard’s technology, team, and partner ecosystem have set a new standard for security delivery, and we are committed to ensuring that WatchGuard has the resources to continue leading the cybersecurity landscape for years to come.”   

Prakash Panjwani, CEO of WatchGuard Technologies
Previous

Inspectiv Closes $8.6M Series A Funding Round

Next

Cyber Insurance Provider Coalition Closes $250 Million in Series F Funding

Check Also

Widget

Don’t Miss

Cloudburst Technologies Raises $3 million in Seed Funding

Julia Bischoff

Cloudburst Technologies, a monitoring and threat intelligence provider, announced that they raised $3 million in their seed investment round. Investments were led by Strategic Cyber Ventures with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Bloccelerate. Cloudburst Technologies specifically provides tools aimed at tracking and combating fraud in the cryptocurrency market. Investigators can do so without relying on […]

Two people collaborating over a computer by Desola Lanre-Ologun

Cyber Deals: Cloudburst, HUB Security, and Soucepass

Julia Bischoff

Cybersecurity venture funding activity and mergers and acquisitions: This week’s most sizable deals included AI powered security service providers and computing platforms. Funding Threat solutions provider for cryptocurrency Cloudburst Technologies raised $3 million in the seed funding round led by Strategic Cyber Ventures in order to help build on their current technology. HUB Security, a […]

Cyber Executive Moves: Vimeo, IntelePeer, National Cybersecurity Center, and More

Julia Bischoff

Former Tesla CISO joins Vimeo, NCC welcomes new board members, and Greenway Health hires new CISO. Video sharing platform Vimeo welcomes Mark Carter as their first chief information security officer. Carter has a variety of experience in the industry including serving as chief information security officer at Tesla.    Greenway Health, a health services software […]

NetBox Labs Raises $20 Million in Series A To Drive Open Source Transformation of Networking Industry

SecureDisruptions

NetBox Labs, an open source network management and automation startup, announced it has raised $20 million in Series A funding. Flybridge Capital is leading the investment with participation from GGV Capital, Grafana Labs CEO Raj Dutt, Mango Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, IBM, the Founder Collective, and Entrée Capital. As part of the round, […]

Fivecast Completes $20M Series A Raise With New US and Existing Australian Venture Investors

SecureDisruptions

US-based cybersecurity venture capital firm Ten Eleven leads funding, joining existing backers in CSIRO’s Main Sequence and South Australian Venture Capital Fund Australian open-source intelligence software company, Fivecast, has closed its Series A funding round with almost $20 million (AU$30m) raised to fuel its expansion and service contracts in key markets, including Five Eyes nations, […]

Push Security Raises $15M and Launches New Visibility and Employee-Powered Tools to Help Enterprises Scale SaaS Security

SecureDisruptions

LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Push Security, a SaaS security company, has raised $15M in Series A funding. GV (Google Ventures) led the funding with participation from Decibel and notable angels, including Dug Song, co-founder and former CEO at Duo Security, and Tray.io co-founder and CEO Rich Waldron. GV General Partner Karim Faris and Jon Oberheide, co-founder and former […]