Hornetsecurity has acquired Altaro, further blurring the line between cloud email security, backup, disaster recovery (BDR) and data protection services. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
This is M&A deal number 29 that ChannelE2E has covered so far in 2021. See all technology M&A deals for 2021 and 2020 listed here.
Hornetsecurity and Altaro: Company Backgrounds
Altaro develops backup solutions for Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware, physical servers, network endpoints and Microsoft Office 365. Those offerings complement Hornetsecurity’s email and compliance solutions, particularly in the sphere of Microsoft 365 environments, according to Altaro CEO David Vello.
Altaro’s co-founders will join the Hornetsecurity Group leadership team, the companies said. Overall headcount figures were not disclosed.
Hornetsecurity is a cloud security specialist, headquartered in Germany, that operates in more than 30 countries. The company has more than 40,000 customers including Swisscom, Telefónica and Konica Minolta, the buyer says.
Hornetsecurity has M&A experience. Earlier acquisitions include Spanish cloud email security solutions provider Spamina and British partner EveryCloud.
BDR, Data Protection and Security Converge
The Altaro-Hornetsecurity deal reinforces growing synergies between cloud backup, disaster recovery, data protection and cybersecurity technologies. For instance:
- Acronis has pivoted from traditional backup to cyber protection.
- OpenText acquired Carbonite and Webroot in 2019.
- Zix acquired CloudAlly for approximately $30 million in 2020.
- MSP platform providers Barracuda, ConnectWise, Datto, Kaseya, NinjaRMM and SolarWinds MSP all have some form of backup and/or cybersecurity technology under ownership.
Hornetsecurity and Altaro: Strong Synergies
In a prepared statement about the deal, Altaro CEO David Vella said:
"We have found exactly the right strategic buyer in Hornetsecurity and are delighted to become part of the group. The synergies between the two companies are obvious. Through our combined know-how and experience, and the innovative combination of our product suites, Hornetsecurity's European market leadership in cloud security has reached a new level."
Added Daniel Hofmann, CEO of Hornetsecurity:
"Our goal is to provide organizations with a complete security and compliance solution for their cloud technologies. By integrating Altaro's backup solutions into Hornetsecurity's product portfolio, we can provide a comprehensive package to protect customer data."
