5 Things To Know About Mastercard Acquiring Recorded Future

The credit card firm is getting into the threat intelligence business with the $2.65 billion acquisition.

Credit card firm Mastercard announced Thursday it is getting into the threat intelligence business with the planned acquisition of Recorded Future.

The acquisition price for the 15-year-old company is $2.65 billion, Mastercard disclosed.

[Related: 5 Major Security Vendors That Could Be Acquired By Private Equity]

What follows are five things to know about Mastercard’s planned acquisition of Recorded Future.

‘Largest’ Player In Threat Intelligence

In a news release announcing the acquisition deal, Mastercard called Somerville, Mass.-based Recorded Future the “world’s largest threat intelligence company.”

Recorded Future currently has more than 1,900 clients, which span 75 countries, according to Mastercard. Those customers include 45 national governments as well as more than half of the companies in the Fortune 100, the payments firm said.

Focus On Fraud Prevention

In addition to tapping into Recorded Future’s technologies for analyzing threats across numerous data sources, Mastercard also noted that the vendor’s capabilities will assist with key priorities for the payments firm including fraud prevention.

Being able to utilize Recorded Future’s technologies “will add to Mastercard’s identity, fraud prevention, real-time decisioning and cybersecurity services,” the credit card giant said.

Ultimately, this will bring “expanded threat intelligence capabilities to [Mastercard’s] network of merchants and financial institutions,” the company said.

AI Focus

Another key aspect of the acquisition is the joint focus on AI across both companies, Mastercard said.

Already, the two companies “collaborate on an AI-supported service that alerts financial institutions more quickly and with greater accuracy when a card is likely to have been compromised,” Mastercard said.

Notably, Recorded Future “has been a pioneer in using AI-powered analytics to generate insights that are easily accessible to and understood by customers,” the credit card firm said.

Acquisition Details

Mastercard reached the acquisition agreement with Insight Partners, which has owned a controlling interest in Recorded Future since 2019.

The $2.65 billion acquisition is expected to close by the first quarter of 2025, Mastercard said.

Recorded Future will operate as an “independent subsidiary of Mastercard,” the co-founder and CEO of Recorded Future, Christopher Ahlberg, wrote in a post Thursday.

CEO Perspective

In the post, Ahlberg wrote that “with Mastercard, we are embarking on the next phase of our growth, broadening our threat intelligence strategy and expanding our global reach.”

“This mission remains unchanged: We will continue to operate as the same company, but now with a new owner and an even greater capacity to scale,” he wrote.

Ultimately, “we remain dedicated to operating as an independent and open intelligence platform,” Ahlberg said.