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Temasek snaps up Sygnia, founded by Israel's NSA, in $250m deal

The cybersecurity consulting firm was created by former members of Israel's 8200 unit.
Written by Charlie Osborne, Contributing Writer

Temasek has acquired cyber consulting company Sygnia which was originally founded by Israel's 8200 unit.

While financial details were not disclosed, a source familiar with the matter said the deal was agreed for $250 million.

Sygnia, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, and New York, offers "military-grade" cybersecurity incident response solutions and consultancy services for organizations worldwide.

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Launched in 2015, the company now counts businesses in the Fortune 100 as clients across industries including the financial sector, IT, telecommunication, logistics, and manufacturing.

Sygnia was founded by former members of Israel's Intelligence Unit 8200, otherwise known as Israel's counterpart to the US National Security Agency (NSA). The company is one of four companies created by Team8, a cybersecurity platform developed by former leaders of 8200 Nadav Zafrir, Israel Grimberg, and Liran Grinberg.

Team8 is backed by Microsoft, Cisco, AT&T, Accenture, Nokia, Temasek, and others.

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A source close to the matter said Team8 originally invested $4.3 million into Sygnia in a seed round and no other investment events have taken place.

Singapore-based Temasek says that Sygnia will remain independent and instead of being absorbed into another company will be "pursuing collaborations with Temasek and its portfolio companies."

"With the acquisition, Sygnia will grow its resources and expand its global reach as it continues building its capabilities as a world-class provider of cyber consulting and incident response services." the company added.

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Under the terms of the deal, founder and CEO Shachar Levy will continue to lead the company, Nadav Zafrir will stay in his position as chairman, and co-founders Ariel Smoler and Ami Kor will remain in "key" positions.

"Aligning with Temasek will strengthen our capability to provide end to end strategic support to organizations in meeting the specter of cyber threats, and allow us to accelerate building our global reach," said Levy. "I am incredibly proud of our team members who have made this company into what it is."

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