Insight Partners bags threat intel company Recorded Future for $780M

May 30, 2019

If you haven’t noticed, security companies are a pretty hot commodity these days. Just yesterday, Palo Alto Networks bought two security startups. Earlier this week, FireEye bought Verodin for $250 million, and today, private equity firm Insight Partners announced it was buying threat intelligence vendor Recorded Future for $780 million.

What Insight is buying is a company that generates information to help customers better understand the external cyber threats they are facing. It’s easy to see where a company like that could have value in today’s world. It boasts 400 customers including GlaxoSmithKline, Morgan Stanley, The Gap and Verizon (the owner of this publication).

As you might expect, Recorded Future sees the deal as a way to continue growing. “This evolution of our relationship [with Insight] will allow Recorded Future to better serve its current and future clients as we tap into the full potential of our technical roadmap and position our software to truly answer some of the most difficult and unique intelligence challenges faced by our community,” company CEO Christopher Ahlberg said in a statement.

The company was founded in 2009 and has raised almost $58 million, according to Crunchbase data. The most recent round for $25 million in 2017 was led by none other than Insight Partners. They apparently liked what they saw and wanted the entire company.

The deal essentially buys out earlier investors, which included GV (Google’s venture arm), In-Q-Tel (the CIA’s venture arm), IA Ventures, Balderton Capital, Mass Mutual Ventures and others — and gives them a healthy return in the process.