Lookouts Its long-running transition to becoming an enterprise security company is all but complete, revealing today that it is selling its consumer mobile security business to the Finnish company F-Secure valued in a deal at about $223 million.
Founded in Boston in 2009, Lookout originally started out as a consumer-facing smartphone security and data backup company, with millions of users and hundreds of millions in funding from esteemed investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Greylock, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Telekom, and Jeff Bezos .
Over the past 10 years, Lookout has gradually expanded its reach into the business domain, establishing business partnerships with technology giants such as Samsung along the way. A few years ago, Lookout went all out to bolster its B2B credentials when it picked up cloud-native cybersecurity startup CipherCloud, a company focused on the growing edge of secure access services (CASE) security segment.
Fast forward to today, and while Lookout still offers a range of security products for the consumer market including antivirus software for smartphonesit is clear that the trajectory has moved much closer to the enterprise in recent years, which is why it is moving virtually all the remnants of its consumer business to F-Secure – a long-established European consumer cybersecurity company that sells everything from password management tools to antiviruses .
Lookout says that with this transaction, which is expected to close within the next two months, its company “will now evolve into a pure-play enterprise business,” with a focus on mobile endpoint security and cloud security. While it didn’t disclose how much it gained for its consumer business, it said the proceeds will be plowed back into its business products, in addition to the $150 million in debt financing it secured itself from BlackRock last summer.
“Our success in the highly competitive enterprise market has forced us to focus our product and go-to-market efforts to gain advantage,” said Lookout CEO Jim Dolce in a statement. press release. “By doubling down on the enterprise market, we are better positioned to benefit from anticipated hypergrowth fueled by an increase in remote and hybrid work, a shift to cloud-based delivery models and the transition to zero-trust architectures.”
For F-Secure, the deal gives it a stronger foothold in the US market, bolstering its existing consumer software lineup with a range of fairly similar products.
“In line with F-Secure’s strategy, we are pursuing growth both organically and through acquisitions,” Timo Laaksonen, CEO of F-Secure, said in a statement. “The acquisition of Lookout’s Consumer Business Unit is an important step in the development of our business in the United States. With a complementary software product portfolio and strong competence in developing mobile products, Lookout’s consumer business unit is a perfect fit for F-Secure.”
*This article has been updated with a deal rating and additional commentary from F-Secure.
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