Thales SA, a French defense company, is acquiring cybersecurity software maker Imperva Inc. for $3.6 billion.

The companies announced the deal this morning. Thales is buying Imperva from Thoma Bravo, a technology-focused private equity firm. Thoma Bravo bought Imperva in 2018 for $2.1 million, which means it could be poised to realize a significant return on investment through the $3.6 billion sale to Thales.

“With this acquisition, we are seizing a unique opportunity to accelerate our cybersecurity capabilities and are taking an important step towards our ambition to build a world-class global cybersecurity integrated player,” said Thales Chief Executive Officer Patrice Caine. 

San Mateo, California-based Imperva is a major provider of enterprise cybersecurity software. It generated more than $500 million in revenue over the past 12 months from 6,200-plus customers. According to Imperva, those customers include more than a third of the companies on the Fortune 100 list.

One of Imperva’s main focus areas is application security. It sells a firewall that companies use to block malicious network traffic from reaching their applications. Imperva also offers tools that filter malicious requests sent to websites, application programming interfaces and serverless workloads.

Malicious requests can sometimes bypass a company’s defenses and reach the target workload. For such situations, Imperva offers a so-called runtime protection platform. The platform works by embedding pieces of code called sensors in a workload that actively scan for breach attempts.

Imperva also operates in a number of other markets. It sells software that can find sensitive data assets in a company’s network and determine if they’re stored insecurely. Additionally, Imperva provides a content delivery network for speeding up website loading times.

Thales plans to merge Imperva into its digital identity and security business. The business sells cybersecurity software for enterprises. It also offers certain other products, including devices for regulating physical access to facilities.

Thales expects the Imperva acquisition to improve its digital identity and security business’ finances on multiple levels. According to the company, the unit is now set to achieve organic growth of between 6% and 7% from 2024 to 2027. Thales hopes to increase the unit’s EBIT, or earnings before interest and taxes, margin to 16.5% in the same time frame.

Overall, the company expects the acquisition to deliver $110 million in annual run-rate synergies. That sum includes $50 million in cost reductions and $60 million worth of new revenue opportunities.

The purchase of Imperva is the latest in a series of acquisitions that Thales has inked over the past few quarters to expand its cybersecurity business. Last month, the company inked a €110 million deal to buy cybersecurity provider Tesserent Ltd. Australia-based Tesserent sells a set of breach protection and response services. Last year, Thales acquired manage security providers S21sec and Excellium from investment firm Sonae. 

Photo: Imperva