Armis Acquires Vulnerability Exploit Tracking Startup

The IPO-bound security unicorn says it has acquired Cyber Threat Cognitive Intelligence.

Cybersecurity unicorn Armis Wednesday announced its acquisition of Cyber Threat Cognitive Intelligence (CTCI), a startup focused on tracking real-world exploits of vulnerabilities.

CTCI offers technology for determining which vulnerabilities are being exploited in the wild by attackers, the company has said. The startup then provides “early warning intelligence” to enable faster implementation of priority patches, according to CTCI’s website.

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Armis said it will integrate CTCI’s “pre-attack” threat hunting technology into Centrix, which is Armis’ cyber exposure management platform.

The addition of the CTCI capabilities will enable Armis to offer “the most advanced early warning cyber intelligence system in the world,” the company said.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Calcalist, which has said Armis is also eyeing an acquisition of cyber visibility startup Silk Security, pegged the company’s deal for CTCI at about $20 million.

Founded in 2020, CTCI had received multiple investments from Recorded Future’s Intelligence Fund.

IPO-Bound

The acquisition follows the disclosure by Armis co-founder and CEO Yevgeny Dibrov last fall that Armis is stepping up its efforts to achieve readiness for an initial public offering and has been eyeing potential IPO timing as soon as the second half of 2024.

The company—a top provider of cybersecurity for IT, medical, IoT and OT assets—received a valuation of $3.4 billion in connection with its $300 million funding round in November 2021, placing the company among the top-valued cybersecurity “unicorns.”

Then a year ago, Armis disclosed that its annual recurring revenue had surpassed $100 million, a key milestone for venture-backed tech vendors that are working up to an IPO.

But along with its expansion into a full cybersecurity platform provider, Armis is continuing to see surging growth and has a “clear path” to being cash-flow-positive by mid-2024—all of which suggests an Armis IPO is likely in the not-too-distant future, Dibrov told CRN in September.