Blue Coat acquiring cloud security startup Elastica for $280 million
Blue Coat is bolstering its cloud security portfolio with the acquisition of Elastica in a deal worth $280 million.
Based in San Jose, the startup develops security operations tools designed for protecting cloud apps with the addition of machine learning and data science for extra visualization into infrastructure activity.
At the core of Elastica's work is its CloudSOC platform, which also employs natural language and behavior monitoring for conducting risk analysis.
Blue Coat plans to mesh CloudSOC with its own web security solutions for on-premises and cloud deployments, huddled together under the Blue Coat Security Platform umbrella.
In Monday's announcement, Blue Coat CEO Greg Clark hinted at the need for cloud access security brokers to rise above "their dependency upon existing on-premise infrastructure."
"Corporations are facing a dissolving perimeter," added Blue Coat president and chief operating officer Mike Fey, "The traditional infrastructure-centric way of protecting users cannot support the cloud age.
Blue Coat noted that the purchase of Elastica falls in line with its ongoing commitment to invest $500 million toward cloud security development.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company itself was acquired by Bain Capital this past March for $2.4 billion.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company went private in 2011 when purchased by private equity firm Thoma Bravo -- Blue Coat's owner before the Bain deal -- in a deal valued at $1.3 billion.
Since then, Blue Coat's acquisition history included big data firm Solera and the SSL appliance product line from fabless semiconductor maker Netronome, both in 2013.
David Humphrey, a managing director at Bain Capital, noted in March that Blue Coat would continue to grow "organically and through acquisitions" as the tech brand plots its return to public markets.