UPDATED 16:09 EDT / NOVEMBER 21 2016

INFRA

Cybersecurity firm Optiv files for IPO to raise $100M

Cybersecurity solutions company Optiv Security Inc. on Friday quietly filed for a $100 million initial public offering.

The company is majority-owned by Blackstone Group LP. IPO underwriters include Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs & Co., Barclays Capital Inc. and Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

While the SEC filing revealed that the company plans to raise $100 million, the final target of the IPO could change. The number and cost of the shares were not listed in the filing.

Optiv was founded when cyber security companies Accuvant and FishNet Security merged in 2014, when Blackstone also made the majority investment into Accuvant.

The company supplies cybersecurity solutions to businesses as a provider of end-to-end security using proprietary technologies, market intelligence and a scalable platform. Optiv is ranked in the top 10 percent of solution providers by revenue, according to CRN Solution Provider 500.

As a cybersecurity provider, Optiv covers solutions for most modern needs including workplace and web security with a forward-looking vision that includes technology trends such as cloud computing, mobile devices and the Internet of Things. The company notes in its filing that all of these trends have been forcing the cybersecurity industry to rethink security frameworks because of new points of attack.

Optiv currently employs 1,700 people, including more than 1,300 cybersecurity experts who work with more than 400 established and emerging security software providers and hardware manufacturers. According to the filing, the company also serves over 71 of the Fortune 100 and 604 of the Fortune 1000 companies, with more than 7,500 clients across 76 countries.

According to a July 2016 report from CB Insights, $10.9 billion was invested in over 1,200 private cyber security startups from 2012 to July 2016.

The landscape of cybersecurity for companies has also continued to expand as cybercrime becomes more expensive for companies working on the Internet. Three years ago, The Wall Street Journal estimated the costs of cybercrime in the U.S. exceeded $100 billion and in 2015 British insurance company Lloyd’s estimated as much as $400 billion a year in costs, which includes direct damage plus the aftershocks of hacks and distributed denial of service attacks.

As for the future, a Juniper Research report from 2015 predicted that data breaches will cost companies more than $2.1 trillion worldwide by 2019. Optiv’s IPO comes as International Data Corp. predicts cybersecurity spending will hit $73.6 billion this year.

The Denver, Colorado-based company intends to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol OPTV.

Featured image credit from Pixabay

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