CrowdStrike Pushes Zero Trust With $96 Million Acquisition of Preempt Security

CrowdStrike (Nasdaq: CRWD) on Wednesday announced that it has agreed to acquire Preempt Security, a provider of Zero Trust and access control technology, in a deal valued at roughly $96 million.

Founded in 2014 by Ajit Sancheti and Roman Blachman, Preempt is yet another cybersecurity firm with roots into the Israeli Defense Forces, where Blachman spent almost ten years.

Preempt focuses on providing security by preventing malicious transactions. It does this by identity, behavior, risk and context at the point of the transaction rather than just the point of log-in. It allows for control over who can access what resources and in what context without network segmentation or application development.

CrowdStrike plans integrate Preempt’s technology into the CrowdStrike Falcon platform to help customers achieve end-to-end visibility and enforcement on identity data.

“Hybrid work environments will become the norm for many organizations which means that Zero Trust security with an identity-centric approach and detecting threats in real-time are critical for business continuity. With the addition of Preempt Security’s capabilities, the CrowdStrike Falcon platform will provide enhanced protection against identity-based attacks and insider threats,” said George Kurtz, co-founder and chief executive officer of CrowdStrike. 

Under the terms of the agreement, CrowdStrike plans to pay roughly $86 million in cash and $10 million in stock and options subject to vesting conditions.

The acquisition is expected to close in CrowdStrike’s fiscal third quarter 2021.

Preempt had raised a total of $27.5 million in funding, including $17.5 million in a 2018 Series B funding round supported by ClearSky, Blackstone, Intel Capital and General Catalyst. The company also raised $8 million in a Series A round in 2016 and $2 million as seed funding in 2014.

*Additional reporting by Kevin Townsend

Related: The Emergence of Identity as an Enterprise Attack Surface

For more than 10 years, Mike Lennon has been closely monitoring the threat landscape and analyzing trends in the National Security and enterprise cybersecurity space. In his role at SecurityWeek, he oversees the editorial direction of the publication and is the Director of several leading security industry conferences around the world.