World Courant
Proofpoint CEO Sumit Dhawan took management of the cybersecurity firm in 2022, a 12 months after it was acquired by Thoma Bravo for $12.3 billion. He has pushed the corporate to contemplate strategic alternatives, corresponding to mergers and acquisitions of smaller cybersecurity gamers, to gasoline the corporate’s market growth and drive business consolidation.
Proof level
LONDON – Non-public cybersecurity agency Proofpoint is exploring attracting exterior buyers for pre-IPO financing and contemplating mergers and acquisitions of smaller cyber corporations because it goals for a return to public markets in 2026, CEO Sumit Dhawan instructed CNBC.
“We’re taking a look at exploring the general public markets someday within the subsequent 12 to 18 months,” mentioned Dhawan, who took over as newly appointed head of Proofpoint in 2022, a 12 months after the corporate was acquired by personal fairness agency Thoma Bravo.
Dhawan added that the timing of Proofpoint’s IPO would nonetheless stay depending on normal market circumstances and the end result of the 2024 US presidential election.
Since Thoma Bravo’s 2021 acquisition of Proofpoint and subsequent appointment of Dhawan as CEO, the corporate’s administration has pushed the corporate to contemplate strategic alternatives, corresponding to mergers and acquisitions of smaller cybersecurity corporations, to drive business consolidation .
Noting that there are presently too many gamers within the cybersecurity market, Dhawan mentioned Proofpoint is presently in search of acquisition targets that present a “strategic match” for the corporate – on the proper worth.
“It is occurred in quite a lot of different know-how areas – it is occurred with infrastructure, it is occurred within the utility platform house – the place you begin constructing fewer suppliers, however richer platforms and consequently there will likely be consolidation,” Dhawan instructed CNBC in an unique interview this week.
“There are presently about 2,000 unprofitable cybersecurity corporations backed by enterprise capital, so it’s clear that they’ll both be consolidated or presumably not exist. As a result of there can’t be so many gamers in anyone market. It is going to occur, it is undoubtedly going to occur.”
Dhawan mentioned he is discovering there is a little bit of a bid-ask unfold out there proper now in relation to cybersecurity capabilities, which means goal corporations are asking for more cash on the sale worth than the valuations they’re being provided. However he added that he sees some “nice alternatives” out there.
The highway from personal to public
Based in 2002 in Silicon Valley, Proofpoint makes know-how that helps corporations forestall phishing makes an attempt and different cyberattacks on a spread of platforms, together with e-mail, social media, cellular units and the cloud.
Proofpoint went public within the US in 2012, however was subsequently delisted after Thoma Bravo acquired the corporate on a inventory change. A $12.3 billion deal in 2021. The buyout got here after buyers apprehensive a couple of slowdown in income development.
Now Proofpoint desires to faucet the general public market once more.
“We’re somewhat totally different than typical corporations that go public,” Dhawan mentioned. “They are usually smaller. They have a tendency to have a really totally different profile. They typically have uncertainty round profitability, and they’re often not ready to simply consolidate.”
Taking Proofpoint public wouldn’t be the primary time that an organization that acquired Thoma Bravo by a non-public fairness buyout has made an IPO for the second time. In 2019, cybersecurity firm Dynatrace, which Thoma Bravo took personal in 2014, went public once more on a New York inventory change.
Proofpoint will undergo “a number of rounds of financing” to broaden possession of the corporate by different personal fairness buyers, Dhawan instructed CNBC, including that non-public placements – the sale of shares to pre-selected buyers versus blanket gross sales to the general public – are attainable. choices it’s contemplating.
“We’re about to begin the method” of fundraising from buyers past personal fairness house owners, Dhawan mentioned. Nevertheless, he emphasised that the corporate has not formally began this course of.
Proofpoint’s boss mentioned he hopes what units his firm aside from different know-how and cybersecurity corporations in search of the same IPO route is an efficient steadiness between development and profitability, double-digit development and powerful management in its market.
Cybersecurity agency Proofpoint is exploring exterior financing because it considers an preliminary public providing
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