Palo Alto Networks has announced the acquisition of application monitoring provider Embrace as the security giant targets real-time observability gains.

The firm said the acquisition will add “high-fidelity real user monitoring (RUM) capabilities” to its existing observability platform and provide customers with deeper insights into user activity.

As part of the announcement, Palo Alto Networks has also introduced Synthetics, a new service built with its Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM) team.

Synthetics will help enterprises proactively validate application performance, the company noted, with these capabilities also extending improved observability to digital experience monitoring (DEM).

“Customers will gain a complete, unified view, from end-user interactions and proactive app validation to backend software and infrastructure, all on the industry's leading, innovative, cost-effective platform,” the company said in a blog post.

The Embrace deal comes hot on the heels of the Chronosphere acquisition, which also aimed to bolster observability capabilities for Palo Alto Networks.

The $3.35 billion acquisition, first announced in November 2025 and closed in January this year, saw the cybersecurity vendor combine Chronosphere's observability platform with its own Cortex AgentiX offering.

Terms of the Embrace deal were not disclosed.

Palo Alto Networks wants the ‘whole picture’

Lee Klarich, chief product and technology officer at Palo Alto Networks, said this latest acquisition aims to provide users with a comprehensive overview of application performance.

“To truly understand how their applications are performing, organisations need to see the whole picture - from the moment a user taps or clicks to what exactly happened on the backend,” he said.

“By combining Palo Alto Networks' leading Observability platform with Embrace's innovative Real User Monitoring and the organically developed Synthetic Monitoring capabilities, we'll deliver exactly that.”

Klarich said the firm also plans to take things “a step further” by linking these new capabilities with Cortex AgentiX.

“Organizations will be able to both see and automatically fix issues across their ecosystem,” he added. “This is what true platformization looks like in practice.”

Observability in the spotlight

Palo Alto’s observability focus comes amidst a critical time for enterprises globally, particularly with the influx of AI tools and agents across IT environments.

Modern applications are “increasingly complex and autonomous”, the company said in a blog post, and enterprises require more detailed performance visibility to ensure reliability.

“Embrace’s proven RUM capabilities are built for modern environments, allowing customers to deliver applications that scale at the pace of AI,” the firm noted.

“Sythetics will leverage Palo Alto Networks’ globally distributed infrastructure to proactively validate application availability and performance from strategic locations across the globe.”

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NetApp has announced the acquisition of California-based AI data infrastructure specialist DataPelago, in a move the company said will improve performance for AI and analytics workloads.

The deal will see DataPelago’s technology integrated into NetApp’s portfolio, enabling GPU-accelerated processing directly within the storage layer rather than requiring data to be moved into separate compute environments.

According to NetApp, the move will help customers reduce their infrastructure costs while improving performance for AI and analytics workloads by processing data at its source.

In an announcement, NetApp CEO George Kurian said the acquisition strengthens the company’s aim of giving customers “full command” of their data.

"As AI models and the chips that power them get ever more effective, enterprises need data infrastructure that is just as intelligent and powerful to harness the potential of their data," he commented.

"With DataPelago, we are extending our ability to help customers understand and process their data with the agility required to unleash competitive advantage.”

Founded in 2021, California-based DataPelago develops AI data infrastructure designed to accelerate data processing for AI and analytics workloads. Its technology focuses on reducing the complexity and cost of preparing enterprise data for AI by enabling processing closer to where data is stored.

At the heart of DataPelago’s offering lies its Nucleus engine, which uses GPU and CPU acceleration to process data directly where it resides.

According to the company, the technology eliminates the need to copy enterprise data into separate AI environments, reducing infrastructure costs by up to 80% while delivering performance improvements of up to ten times compared with conventional approaches.

By embedding the technology into its storage platform, NetApp said customers will be able to prepare, govern, and activate enterprise data for AI without moving it between environments, helping to remove one of the biggest bottlenecks facing AI deployments.

"NetApp manages more enterprise data across more environments than anyone in the industry," said Syam Nair, Chief Product Officer at NetApp.

“The next phase of AI will be won by those who make that data work at the source, and the DataPelago team brings the technical depth and velocity to get us there faster."

Upon completion of the acquisition, DataPelago will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of NetApp.

Commenting on the acquisition, DataPelago founder and CEO Rajan Goyal said joining NetApp would allow the company to bring its technology to a wider enterprise customer base.

"Joining NetApp gives us the opportunity to combine our breakthrough processing technology with the industry's best data infrastructure portfolio,” he explained.

“Enterprises have invested billions in GPUs and AI models, but their data remains fragmented, leaving valuable computing resources to sit idle rather than putting these investments to work.

“Together, we’re positioned to help customers simplify and accelerate AI deployment at scale."

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

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Barracuda Networks has announced the acquisition of identity and access management (IAM) specialist Evo Security, in a move that will bring expanded capabilities to its BarracudaONE platform.

Founded in 2018, Texas-based Evo Security provides a platform that combines IAM capabilities with privileged access management (PAM) technology into a single, multi-tenant platform tailored to the needs of MSPs.

The acquisition will see the firm’s technology integrated into BarracudaONE, creating a unified offering that brings together access management, identity protection, and identity threat detection and response.

According to Barracuda, the expansion will provide partners with a single platform for delivering identity resilience while helping customers simplify identity security by reducing the need to manage multiple point solutions.

In an announcement, Barracuda CEO Rohit Ghai said combining Evo Security's technology with BarracudaONE will help customers stay ahead of identity-centric attacks as AI continues to reshape the threat landscape.

“In the agentic AI era, protecting both human and non-human identities is imperative for delivering cyber resilience,” he explained. “Existing enterprise identity solutions are complex, costly and fail to meet the needs of MSPs that must scale to securely manage millions of identities across thousands of customer environments.

“We are thrilled to combine Evo Security’s partner-first innovation with our vision of BarracudaONE and offer a complete, intelligent, easy, and open platform that closes this gap.”

According to the vendor, Evo Security’s integration into the BarracudaONE platform will provide partners with a unified identity security architecture that spans privileged access management, access control, identity protection, and identity threat detection and response.

MSPs will be able to manage customer identities from a single multi-tenant environment while enforcing authentication, access policies, identity protection, and identity threat detection.

Barracuda builds on resilience goals

The acquisition also builds on Barracuda’s wider cyber resilience platform, which already includes solutions that cover email security, data protection, network security, cloud security, and managed extended detection and response (MXDR).

For customers, Barracuda said the expanded offering will deliver integrated identity security that is designed to be easier to deploy and manage than traditional enterprise identity platforms, while allowing organizations to retain their existing security infrastructure rather than replacing it.

Alongside the technology integration, Evo Security’s team has joined Barracuda as part of the acquisition and the vendor said it will continue to support Evo’s existing MSP customers as the platform continues to expand.

Commenting on the acquisition, Evo Security founder and CEO Michael Roth said joining Barracuda will enable the business to expand its identity-first approach to a wider global partner base.

“We built Evo Security to solve the identity challenges MSPs face every day,” he explained. “Joining Barracuda gives us the scale, reach and resources to accelerate that mission globally.

“Our identity‑first approach was designed from day one for MSP operations, and now, together with BarracudaONE, we can bring modern identity security, privileged access management and automation to far more partners and the customers they protect.”

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

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Databarracks has announced the acquisition of business continuity consultancy Acumen Business Services, in a move the company said will expand and strengthen its managed resilience offering.

The deal follows Databarracks’ purchase of PlanB Consulting in 2024 and continues the firm’s strategy of bringing business continuity and technology resilience services together under a single managed service model.

Founded in 1997, Acumen specializes in business continuity consulting services and serves more than 100 customers across sectors such as financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Acumen’s customers will gain access to Databarracks’ Business Resilience Managed Service and Recovery Confidence assurance framework, which combines business continuity planning with technology resilience and recovery capabilities.

In an announcement, Databarracks’ resilience director Chris Butler said the two companies share a common approach to ensuring business continuity is practical for customers.

“Acumen has delivered business continuity and resilience services to some of the largest organizations in the UK and around the world,” he commented. “We share a common vision of embedding resilience and making BC practical and simple, while adding real value for our customers.”

Headquartered in London, Databarracks specializes in technology and business resilience services, providing managed backup, disaster recovery, cloud, and continuity solutions.

The company said its Business Resilience function has seen rapid growth following the previous acquisition of PlanB Consulting in 2024, as customer demand for integrated resilience services continues to grow.

Commenting on the deal, Acumen founder Andy Osborne said the companies’ combined abilities will help customers better address the growing overlap between business continuity and technology resilience.

“Technology and cyber risk are absolutely central to business continuity, and Databarracks is leading the industry in an approach that brings them together,” he explained.

“This is the right next step for Acumen and our clients, combining our business continuity expertise with Databarracks’ strength in business and technology resilience and recovery solutions.”

Databarracks chairman Mike Osborne praised Acumen’s depth of expertise and long-standing contribution to the wider business continuity industry.

“I’ve known Acumen for a very long time,” he commented. “In addition to the great work the team has been delivering for decades, Andy has been prolific in contributing to the progress of the industry, authoring books and generally sharing his expertise.”

Osborne added that the deal reflects the growing demand for the company’s own managed resilience offering following its expansion in recent years.

“Databarracks’ Business Resilience function is growing rapidly following our previous acquisition of PlanB Consulting in 2024,” he explained. “Given the sheer pace of change in risk, there has been a fantastic response to our approach of delivering resilience as a managed service.”

Financial terms of the Acumen acquisition were not disclosed.

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Accenture has agreed to acquire a majority stake in operational technology (OT) security specialist Dragos, alongside the acquisitions of runZero and NetRise, as the consulting giant looks to strengthen its critical infrastructure defense capabilities.

The transactions, valued at approximately $4.175 billion, will see Dragos remain an independent business led by co-founder and CEO Robert M. Lee, while operating with runZero and NetRise under its umbrella.

The move aims to address the growing security challenges facing OT environments as industrial systems become increasingly connected and exposed to AI-driven threats.

According to Accenture, expanding OT environments – including industrial control systems, connected devices, sensors, and cloud infrastructure – are creating new security risks that traditional IT security budgets often fail to address.

To tackle this evolving issue, Dragos’ threat detection platform will be combined with runZero’s exposure assessment capabilities and NetRise’s device and software supply chain security technology.

Accenture said the unified offering will equip organizations with greater visibility across OT environments, helping security teams identify assets, assess exposure, and effectively respond to threats.

“Our clients across industries and regions are asking us how to be more proactive and integrated in their approach to cybersecurity,” commented Accenture chair and CEO Julie Sweet. “The addition of Dragos, complemented by runZero and NetRise, fills this important need.”

Expanding OT security capabilities

Accenture said its latest investments will expand its presence in the OT cybersecurity market beyond services and into software capabilities.

The company estimates that the wider OT security market will be worth approximately $27 billion in 2026 and will grow to almost $59 billion by 2031.

Together, Dragos, runZero, and NetRise are expected to generate around $208 million in annual recurring revenue as of June 2026, representing year-on-year growth of 53%.

“We are confident Dragos’ differentiated OT platform will accelerate our growth in the critical infrastructure and industrial operations markets, driving long-term shareholder value through scaled adoption of advanced cybersecurity capabilities,” Sweet added.

Preserving vendor neutrality

Dragos said the integration of runZero and NetRise will broaden its platform capabilities while maintaining its existing vendor-neutral approach and support for complex multi-vendor environments.

As part of the agreement, runZero CEO HD Moore, NetRise CEO Thomas Pace, as well as NetRise CTO and chief scientist Michael Scott will take on senior roles within the business.

“The addition of runZero and NetRise will allow the Dragos Platform to be a unique end-to-end platform for global defense, and Accenture will bring its decades of trusted relationships and deep expertise to help us scale and secure more critical infrastructure and physical operations globally,” explained Dragos co-founder and CEO Robert M. Lee.

Accenture said the transactions are expected to close in August or September 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

The deals follow a string of previous acquisitions for the company in the OT security space over the last decade, including the acquisitions of Cimation in 2015 and Revolutionary Security in 2020.

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Salesforce is set to acquire Fin for $3.6bn, giving the CRM giant an AI agent for customer service.

Fin was founded in 2011 as Intercom, with the chatbot maker rebranding as Fin last month. Over the last few years, the company has focused on developing an AI agent using its own Apex model that's built specifically for customer support.

Salesforce has its own agentic AI known as Agentforce, which was unveiled at the end of 2024. Earlier this year, Salesforce unveiled Agentforce Contact Centre, pulling together its AI agent and the company's CRM. Salesforce said Agentforce has reached an annual run rate of $1.2bn in the latest quarter, up 205% year on year.

"We're thrilled to welcome Fin to Salesforce as we enable every company to become an agentic enterprise," said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce, in a statement. "Fin brings proven agent technology, a deep commitment to customer success, and an incredible AI team that will complement Agentforce with powerful service agent capabilities."

The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, subject to regulatory clearance.

Salesforce has pushed AI agents as the future of customer service, with CEO Marc Benioff saying his company has slashed 4,000 customer service roles in favour of AI agents so far. But one survey from earlier this year suggests customers don't agree with the AI chatbots for customer service, with more than two-thirds not confident in the way businesses use generative AI to interact with them, and half saying the transactions don't work.

Find a win-win for customers

Fin's AI agent is multichannel with support for chat, email, WhatsApp, Slack, and even the phone, covering all aspects of a customer journey from sales to service, with the company claiming it can update accounts, troubleshoot tech problems, and process refunds.

On its website, Fin claims to have industry-leading resolution rates of 76% across more than 12,000 customers, with that performance gaining a percentage point every month it's in use.

Fin's system is already in use by companies such as Asana and Monday.com – as well as AI developer Anthropic.

"This is a major win for consumers of the world," said Eoghan McCabe, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Fin. "Our technology has defined this category and set the new standards for what great customer service looks like today. By joining forces with Salesforce, we can deploy it far and wide at a rate far faster than we could have ever achieved on our own."

Salesforce said in a statement that the aim was to give its customers more ways to deploy AI agents in their customer service operations, in particular, offering small businesses options with fast time-to-value that are easily deployable and offer measurable outcomes.

Plus, Salesforce gains Fin's AI team and its customer base of 30,000 companies.

From Intercom to Fin

Intercom was started in 2011 by a quartet of founders – Eoghan McCabe, Des Traynor, Ciaran Lee, and David Barrett – and developed chatbots for companies to offer customer service, with the Intercom window ubiquitous in the bottom corner of websites.

Several years later, CEO Eoghan McCabe was accused of "unwanted advances" towards female employees, and though he apologised at the time, he stepped down the next year. COO Karen Peacock took over as CEO, but only briefly, as McCabe returned in 2022 at the request of the board – keeping the controversy continuing with public support for US President Trump.

Last month, Intercom rebranded as Fin, the name of the company's AI agent platform, though the Intercom brand was continuing as customer service software. "Fin is clearly our future, and the future of this new customer agent category," McCabe said at the time.

Cloudflare has announced the acquisition of VoidZero, the open source company behind the Vite JavaScript build tool, as the connectivity cloud provider looks to strengthen its position in AI-native application development.

The acquisition will see Cloudflare integrate VoidZero’s tooling portfolio – which includes the Vite build tool, Vitest test runner, Rust-based Rolldown bundler, and Oxc toolchain – into its Workers developer platform.

The company said the integration will help simplify how developers and AI coding agents build and deploy applications to its global network.

Founded in 2024 by Vue.js and Vite creator Evan You, VoidZero develops a range of open source tools geared towards improving performance and reducing complexity across modern JavaScript application development workflows.

In an announcement, Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince said the acquisition comes in response to the rapid rise of AI-assisted development and its reshaping of how applications are built and deployed.

"The best engineers I know are shipping more code than ever, and writing less of it by hand,” he commented. “AI is doing more of the typing — so everything around it has to keep up. Evan and his team built Vite from scratch with the same philosophy we used to build Cloudflare: strip out the bloat and make it fast.

“Bringing them on board gives millions of developers, and the AI agents working alongside them, the fastest path from local code to our global network.”

Strengthening AI-native development

According to Cloudflare, the VoidZero acquisition will enable developers to move more easily from local development to global production through unified integration between Vite workflows and the Cloudflare platform.

The vendor said it also plans to further develop intent-based infrastructure capabilities, enabling applications to automatically provision supporting services such as databases and object storage through native integration with Cloudflare resources such as D1 and R2.

Following the acquisition, VoidZero’s engineering team will join Cloudflare’s Emerging Technology and Incubation (ETI) organization, while continuing to maintain the company’s open source roadmap.

Commenting on the acquisition, VoidZero founder and CEO Evan You said the move will enable the business to continue advancing its tooling ecosystem while benefiting from Cloudflare’s infrastructure and global reach.

"Our mission at VoidZero has always been to eliminate the fragmentation and performance bottlenecks of the modern web stack," he explained. "Cloudflare shares our obsession with speed and architectural purity.”

Maintaining open source neutrality

Upon completion of the deal, Cloudflare said Vite, Rolldown, Oxc, and Vitest will remain open source, vendor-agnostic, and community-driven, while continuing to operate under MIT licenses.

The vendor also revealed it has committed $1 million to an independent Vite ecosystem fund designed to support open source maintainers and contributors outside of both Cloudflare and VoidZero.

According to Cloudflare, Vite currently sees more than 130 million weekly downloads, while the Cloudflare Vite plugin has now reached approximately 13.9 million downloads per week – equating to more than 10% of Vite’s entire weekly volume.

“Joining forces allows us to keep the Vite ecosystem neutral, open, and vendor-agnostic, while giving us the resources and global infrastructure to supercharge the developer experience for millions of engineers worldwide," You added.

Terms of the VoidZero acquisition were not disclosed.

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NTT Data has announced plans to acquire Microsoft partner WinWire, an agentic AI SaaS business.

The acquisition will see NTT Data expand its expertise across agentic AI, data engineering, and cloud-native application development, while adding more than 1,000 Azure engineers and specialists to its global Microsoft practice.

WinWire is a California-based firm, founded in 2007, that specializes in AI-led digital transformation services, with expertise across Microsoft environments such as Fabric and Azure AI Foundry. The firm is a six-time winner of the Microsoft Partner of the Year award, as well as being a member of the Microsoft Agentic Partner Alliance Program.

In its announcement, NTT Data said the acquisition further enhances its ability to co-innovate and co-sell industry-focused AI solutions alongside the vendor.

"The acquisition of WinWire is a decisive step in advancing our enterprise AI strategy and expanding our leadership in Microsoft Azure and AI-powered cloud transformation," commented Abhijit Dubey, CEO and chief AI officer at NTT DATA.

"By combining WinWire's deep expertise in cloud-native development and agentic AI with NTT DATA's global scale, this positions us to lead the shift to enterprise AI, enabling clients to move from experimentation to enterprise-wide deployment and achieve meaningful business outcomes."

Expanding AI solutions delivery

NTT Data said the acquisition comes amid growing enterprise demand for AI-driven transformation and cloud-native infrastructure, with organizations increasingly seeking platforms capable of supporting AI deployments across their wider business.

Upon closing of the deal, the combined capabilities are expected to strengthen NTT Data's delivery of industry-specific AI solutions across infrastructure, applications, data, managed services, and security.

WinWire also brings its 'Agentic AI @ Scale' framework to the business, which enables the design and deployment of intelligent autonomous systems directly into enterprise workflows.

Commenting on the move, WinWire CEO Ashu Goel said the company was established with the aim of delivering meaningful Azure and AI-led transformation to the enterprise.

"Joining NTT DATA marks an exciting new chapter, allowing us to extend our capabilities to a much broader global client base," he added. "Together, we are well-positioned to accelerate innovation and shape the next wave of AI-driven transformation for our clients."

Strengthening collaborative Microsoft services

The WinWire acquisition builds on NTT's long-standing partnership with Microsoft and will complement the firm's Global Business Unit for Microsoft Cloud, which currently operates across more than 50 countries and is backed by over 24,000 Microsoft certifications.

Stephen Boyle, corporate vice president of enterprise partner solutions at Microsoft, said the deal bolsters the companies' collaboration efforts and ability to deliver effective AI transformation services.

"As enterprises look to unlock the full value of AI on Microsoft Azure, the role of skilled partners has never been more critical," he explained. "By combining NTT DATA's global scale with WinWire's expertise in cloud-native development and agentic AI, this acquisition enhances our joint ability to co-innovate and deliver transformative solutions."

Closure of the acquisition remains subject to customary closing conditions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SAP has announced plans to acquire both Dremio and Prior Labs, as the enterprise software giant looks to expand its AI capabilities amid growing demand for data-driven intelligence.

Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed, but both transactions are expected to close in Q2 or Q3 2026, subject to regulatory approval.

According to SAP, the acquisition of Dremio will strengthen its data infrastructure layer, enabling customers to unify SAP and non-SAP data to more effectively run real-time analytic and AI workloads.

Specifically, the vendor said the move will enhance its Business Data Cloud and SAP HANA Cloud offerings to better address challenges around fragmented data environments.

The integration of Dremio’s lakehouse platform will provide a more open and scalable foundation for enterprise data, according to SAP, allowing organizations to access and analyze data across multiple systems without the need for complex data movement or transformation.

The platform’s serverless architecture is also expected to improve the cost and performance of large-scale analytics workloads.

“Enterprise AI doesn’t stall because the models aren’t good enough; it stalls because the data isn’t ready for AI agents,” commented Philipp Herzig, CTO at SAP SE.

“Dremio eliminates that bottleneck. Combined with SAP Business Data Cloud, we can now take customers from raw, fragmented data to governed, AI-ready intelligence on a single open platform.”

Post-acquisition, SAP said it will continue to invest in the open source projects at the heart of the Dremio platform – such as Apache Iceberg, Apache Polaris, and Apache Arrow.

SAP expands tabular AI capabilities

SAP has also moved to acquire Prior Labs, a specialist in tabular foundation models (TFMs), in a bid to strengthen its AI research capabilities and meet enterprise demand for AI that focuses on structured data.

As part of the deal, Prior Labs will continue to operate independently, with SAP committing to invest more than €1 billion over the next four years to scale the business into a global AI research hub.

The move builds on SAP’s existing work in tabular AI – including its SAP-RPT-1 model – and is expected to enhance the firm’s ability to deliver predictive insights from structured business data such as financial records, supply chain data, and customer information.

Unlike large language models (LLMs), which can struggle with structured datasets, TFMs are purpose-built for understanding and processing tabular data to enable more accurate predictions and business outcomes.

Commenting on the Prior Labs acquisition, Herzig said SAP sees significant untapped opportunity in AI that’s purpose-built for structured enterprise data.

“Prior Labs has built a leading TFM on public benchmarks and built one of the leading research teams in this category,” he explained.

“Combining their frontier model work with enterprise data and customer reach is how we intend to lead this category globally.”

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Version 1 has announced plans to acquire technology services firm CreateFuture, as the digital transformation consultancy looks to expand its AI-led capabilities and market reach.

The proposed deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, will see the combined organization grow to around 4,250 employees and is expected to generate annual revenues exceeding €500 million. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Founded in 2010, CreateFuture is a practitioner-led, AI-native partner to large enterprise clients, with expertise across sectors such as iGaming, financial services, utilities, and other compliance-focused industries. The firm employs around 550 staff.

Together, the companies plan to deliver AI-driven digital transformation programs at scale across complex, regulated environments in both public and private sectors.

In an announcement, Version 1 said CreateFuture’s expertise will strengthen its market position and enhance its AI-first capabilities.

"This acquisition is a strong strategic fit for Version 1, strengthening our capabilities and expanding the markets we serve,” said Roop Singh, CEO at Version 1. “CreateFuture is an exceptional business, with high-calibre talent, deep client relationships and sector expertise that directly complements our own.

“They have built something genuinely impressive for clients, leveraging AI-driven capabilities with a flexible and agile approach, and have delivered sustained growth ahead of the market.”

The deal marks the next phase of Version 1’s strategy to scale its AI-first services offering across complex and regulated industries where demand for digital transformation services continues to grow.

With the addition of CreateFuture, the company said the combined business will be well-positioned to offer deeper expertise and improved delivery capacity as it continues to expand its footprint across industries.

“This is a growth acquisition and reflects exactly where we are as a business, confident in our people, clear on our strategy and ready for what comes next,” Singh added.

Post-acquisition, the CreateFuture leadership team will remain at the helm of the business and will continue to lead its existing teams and client engagement, Version 1 confirmed.

Commenting on the deal, CreateFuture founder Euan Andrews said the move will help accelerate the company’s own growth ambitions while preserving its core culture.

"We started CreateFuture 16 years ago with a simple belief that the best work happens when great people are trusted to do great work for clients who care about the outcome,” he explained.

“That belief has not changed, and this partnership accelerates our ambition for CreateFuture with a highly culturally aligned partner in Version 1.”

Andrews added that Version 1’s reach and resources will enable CreateFuture to better serve its clients while also unlocking “significant opportunities” for its team members.

“I am genuinely excited about what this means for our people, for our clients, and for the next chapter of the business we have built together," he said.

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Integris has announced plans to acquire Australian MSP First Focus, as the US-based provider looks to expand its international footprint and broaden its services for small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers.

The proposed deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, will see Integris gain a significant presence across Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines, further extending its reach into key growth markets.

Founded in 2003, First Focus serves more than 800 organizations across the region, providing expertise spanning managed IT, cybersecurity, cloud, AI, and software development, alongside support services for mid-market customers.

The company employs almost 400 staff across its operations.

In an announcement, Integris said the acquisition will bolster its ability to deliver enterprise-grade technology to SMB clients operating across multiple regions as demand for secure, scalable AI capabilities continues to grow. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"This acquisition represents a meaningful step forward in our long-term vision to build a truly global platform MSP focused on the needs of small and midsize businesses," explained Rashaad Bajwa, chief executive officer at Integris.

"As AI rapidly reshapes how organizations operate, scale, and compete, this combination allows us to accelerate our ability to deliver secure, governed AI capabilities globally—while maintaining the high-quality, people-first service our customers expect."

Integris eyes international growth

Headquartered in New Jersey, Integris provides managed AI and IT services to SMBs, helping organizations modernize their technology environments and improve operational performance.

The company’s planned purchase of First Focus marks its first international acquisition as part of its broader plans to scale its AI and IT services offering globally.

Integris said the move will position it as one of the largest global MSPs focused on the SMB segment, with the additional resources expected to improve its ability to support clients operating across multiple regions while continuing to deliver localized service and expertise.

Upon completion of the deal, First Focus will continue to operate under its existing leadership team, with both companies planning to focus on integration efforts such as knowledge sharing and operational alignment while maintaining continuity for customers.

"We see this partnership as a strong cultural and strategic fit," commented First Focus CEO Ross Sardi. "Integris brings the scale and long-term approach to help us grow our people and deliver even more value to our clients—while staying true to who we are."

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ServiceNow has completed its acquisition of cyber exposure management specialist Armis in a deal valued at approximately $7.75 billion.

The addition of Armis will extend ServiceNow’s AI platform into operational and physical environments, enabling real-time visibility and protection across a range of connected assets, including IT, OT, IoT, medical devices, and cloud infrastructure.

The move follows ServiceNow’s purchase of identity security firm Veza back in March, with the vendor now adding advanced asset visibility to create a more unified view of both assets and access.

In an announcement, the company said these additional capabilities will help close the gap between risk detection and remediation as enterprise environments continue to grow more complex and distributed.

"Armis gives us real-time, contextual awareness into the cyber risk of every connected asset, including the devices and systems that conventional tools were never built to see,” explained Amit Zavery, president, COO, and CPO at ServiceNow.

“Combined with Veza's identity intelligence, that signal flows into ServiceNow's Context Engine and AI Control Tower, turning exposure into automated remediation with governance and a full audit trail built in at every step."

Closing the visibility gap

ServiceNow's latest acquisition comes as organizations face a sharp increase in security complexity, driven by the rise of cloud-native architectures, AI adoption, and an increased number of connected devices.

The vendor said Armis’ technology will enable continuous asset discovery and monitoring across every connected cyber asset to help organizations better understand their attack surface.

By combining Armis with Veza’s identity visibility tools and Access Graph, the firm is aiming to equip customers with a more complete picture of both assets and access across their environments, improving risk prioritization and enabling faster threat response.

Additionally, the combined platform will support automated workflows, allowing security teams to move from detection to remediation more efficiently while maintaining governance and audit trails.

On the personnel front, Armis’ employees will also join ServiceNow as part of the deal.

Commenting on the acquisition, Armis co-founder and CEO Yevgeny Dibrov said the company was built to protect organizations’ assets at the heart of manufacturing, healthcare, and critical infrastructure.

"Joining ServiceNow, with Veza already on the platform, enables us to address this mission tenfold to keep the world’s largest and most complex enterprise environments safe and secure,” he added.

Expanding partner opportunities

For partners, ServiceNow said the acquisition will open up new opportunities as enterprises increasingly look to deploy AI securely and at scale. Partners from both companies’ ecosystems will be able to leverage the combined platform to tap into demand for unified visibility, automated protection, and results-driven security services.

For existing Armis customers, Armis Centrix will remain available as a standalone offering, while deeper integration with ServiceNow’s AI platform is expected over time.

According to ServiceNow, the deal is set to significantly expand its addressable market for security and risk solutions, with the additions of Armis and Veza expected to more than triple the firm’s market opportunity in the segment.

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Dynatrace has signed a definitive agreement to acquire telemetry pipeline specialist Bindplane, as the vendor looks to expand its observability capabilities.

The move aims to deliver an open-standards-based telemetry pipeline spanning logs, metrics, and traces to give customers greater control over data across complex IT environments.

Founded in 2020, Bindplane’s technology optimizes and governs telemetry at the edge to improve data quality, reduce ingest costs, and enhance compliance through the removal, masking, and encryption of sensitive data.

Post-acquisition, Dynatrace said the combined offering will provide customers with a more unified approach to managing observability across distributed systems, enabling a “new level of control over telemetry.”

“As data volumes surge and AI becomes central to how teams build and operate software, customers need a unified, open approach to managing their data,” explained Steve Tack, chief product officer at Dynatrace.

“Our combined offering will create a market leading foundation that gives customers the clarity and control they need to operate with confidence and drive innovation.”

Expanded observability for the AI era

The acquisition comes as organizations face a surge in telemetry data volumes, driven by the rise of cloud-native architectures and AI-powered development.

Dynatrace said Bindplane’s integration will also accelerate its log management and analytics roadmap, enabling customers to ingest and process data from a wider range of sources while offering the freedom to route telemetry to any destination.

Additionally, the platform’s expanded capabilities will help customers transition from legacy monitoring tools to modern, cloud-native observability frameworks.

Commenting on the deal, Bindplane CEO Michael Kelly said the combined technologies will help organizations better manage the growing complexity of telemetry data in the era of AI.

“As organizations modernize and adopt AI-driven development, telemetry has become one of their most valuable and yet challenging assets,” he explained. “Bindplane helps customers reduce complexity, improve data quality, and accelerate their digital transformation.

“We’re excited to join Dynatrace to enable even more teams around the world to turn their data into a strategic advantage.”

The transaction is expected to close later this month, subject to customary closing conditions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but Dynatrace said the move is not expected to have a material impact on its FY27 financial results.

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Relational database management provider MariaDB has struck a definitive agreement to acquire in-memory computing specialist GridGain.

Founded in 2007, GridGain provides an in-memory computing platform designed to help organizations process large volumes of data in real-time. The company is also the creator of the Apache Ignite open source software.

The acquisition will see the firm’s capabilities integrated with MariaDB’s AI-ready relational database platform to deliver high-performance data infrastructure capable of supporting emerging AI workloads.

The aim is to address increasing performance demands and close the AI latency gap as businesses adopt more advanced systems that require quick access to large datasets.

In an announcement, MariaDB said the combined platform will deliver sub-millisecond data infrastructure in response to the “unprecedented demands” that agentic workloads have placed on dated enterprise architecture.

“By uniting our platform with GridGain’s in-memory data grid, we are entering a new weight class,” said MariaDB CEO Rohit de Souza. “This enables us to provide a high-performance, scalable, open alternative to the rigid lock-in of Oracle and the fragmented complexity of hyperscalers.”

Addressing the AI latency gap

GridGain’s in-memory computing technology is used to accelerate data processing for organizations running large-scale, data-intensive applications.

The platform provides security controls, high availability, distributed capability, and management features designed to drive performance and scalability.

Post-acquisition, the planned integration will combine the ACID-compliant transactional integrity of MariaDB’s own database platform with GridGain’s extreme-scale and in-memory processing capabilities to help eliminate the disk-drive tax on performance.

According to MariaDB, the integrated offering will support organizations operating across sectors such as financial services, telecommunications, logistics, and technology. Notable customers include American Express, Barclays, BNP Paribas, HPE, Red Hat, Verizon, and Virgin Media O2.

A unified approach to AI data

The MariaDB-GridGain integration aims to replace fragmented services with a unified, hybrid-cloud platform capable of tackling transactional, analytical, and AI use cases through a single, high-velocity system.

Commenting on the acquisition, Lalit Ahuja, CTO of GridGain, said enterprises can no longer afford the latency that arises from siloed data architectures.

“With MariaDB and GridGain, enterprise customers will get a unified platform that provides them the best of both worlds, performance and scale without having to give up on durability,” he explained.

“The combined technology stack will unlock one of the key enablers for agentic enterprises: high-performance and reliable data processing that powers the next generation of AI applications.”

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Nasuni has announced the acquisition of Resilio, in a move the cloud storage vendor said will improve file access and data orchestration for distributed workforces.

Resilio was founded in 2016 and specializes in high-performance file synchronization and edge acceleration technology. Its software is designed to enable fast and reliable file access across distributed environments with bandwidth-constrains.

The acquisition will combine Resilio's synchronization and caching capabilities with Nasuni's cloud-native file services, extending high-speed access to shared data across hybrid and globally dispersed teams.

Nasuni said the deal will help remove friction from how employees collaborate on shared content, delivering access to files across offices, remote sites, and hybrid environments without reliance on VPN-based access or standalone tools.

The move forms part of Nasuni's broader strategy to improve enterprise productivity by ensuring mission-critical data remains accessible regardless of where work is taking place.

"We're excited to welcome the Resilio team to Nasuni," said Nasuni CEO, Sam King, in an announcement. "Our customers already rely on Nasuni to manage, protect, and activate their enterprise file data on a global scale. With Resilio, we're extending our platform to help improve enterprise productivity while continuing to simplify operations and protect IT environments."

Nasuni's new high-speed file access for the AI era

Resilio's technology targets environments that require consistent file performance despite bandwidth limitations or a widely distributed architecture. Its integration into the Nasuni platform aims to help reduce reliance on disconnected synchronization solutions while expanding workload support across the enterprise.

Nasuni said the combined offering will deliver high-speed access to shared files while maintaining centralized governance and security controls, helping organizations prepare distributed data for analytics and AI-driven initiatives.

"By accelerating how distributed data is accessed and made available across environments, we're helping customers more efficiently power AI and analytics initiatives – ensuring teams can securely leverage the right data, in the right place, at the right time to drive better insights and outcomes," commented Nick Burling, Nasuni's chief product officer.

Resilio's teams, technology, and operations will be integrated in phases, Nasuni confirmed. While existing partners and customers will continue receiving current service and support levels.

"We're proud of what the Resilio team has built, and joining Nasuni represents an exciting next step for our employees and customers," said Resilio CEO Eric Klinker. "Together, we expect to help organisations collaborate more effectively on mission-critical content, regardless of location."

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Arctic Wolf has announced it has acquired exposure assessment specialist Sevco Security for an undisclosed sum.

Founded in 2020, Texas-based Sevco Security offers an exposure assessment platform designed to centralize asset data and enable organizations to proactively manage and reduce cyber risk. In 2025, the firm was named as a Visionary in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for exposure assessment platforms.

Sevco’s cloud native technology will be integrated into Arctic Wolf’s Aurora Platform, unifying asset intelligence, vulnerability context, and security control coverage to help organizations shore up hybrid environments.

In an announcement, Dan Schiappa, Arctic Wolf’s president of technology and services said exposure and risk management capabilities are essential to adopting a proactive approach to security.

“In our view Sevco’s recognition as a Visionary by Gartner validates the approach they have taken to asset intelligence and exposure assessment,” he explained.

“By adding Sevco to Arctic Wolf’s portfolio of solutions, we intend to give customers and MSPs the clarity and context they need to act earlier, prioritize effectively, and verify that risk is being reduced.”

As demand for exposure management solutions increases, Sevco’s platform works to provide an authoritative system-of-record for assets and exposures to help security teams shift from static vulnerability lists to prioritized, outcome-driven action.

Arctic Wolf said Sevco’s addition to the Aurora platform will complement its Managed Risk offering to deliver a unified, real-time perspective across their attack surfaces.

To help drive down operational complexity, MSPs and customers will be able to leverage end-to-end visibility, improved prioritization through exposure context, as well as streamlined remediation workflows.

Sevco CEO and co-founder, JJ Guy, said the company’s acquisition reinforces its mission to equip security teams with an “authoritative, real-time view of every asset and exposure.”

“Joining Arctic Wolf accelerates our mission and brings our platform’s strengths to organizations that need unified visibility, smarter prioritization, and verifiable remediation as part of their security operations,” he commented.

Arctic Wolf’s acquisition of Sevco Security is the latest in a series of buys designed to strengthen its Aurora Platform.

In 2025, the vendor snapped up AI-driven cybersecurity provider Cylance, before further bolstering its endpoint protection capabilities by acquiring UpSight.

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Palo Alto Networks has completed its $25 billion acquisition of CyberArk, aiming to fill the gaps in its current offerings by incorporating identity security.

According to Palo Alto Networks, the deal will enable it to secure every identity across the enterprise - human, machine, and agentic - by adding CyberArk's AI-powered Identity Security Platform to its portfolio.

The platform applies intelligent privilege controls to every identity, offering continuous threat prevention, detection and response across the identity lifecycle, with tools covering areas such as privileged access management (PAM), secure single sign-on (SSO), and multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Machine identities now outnumber human identities by more than 80 to one, the company noted, while three-quarters of organizations say their human identities are governed by outdated and overly permissive privilege models.

Attackers are increasingly exploiting identity weaknesses, making credential abuse and excessive privilege among the dominant threat vectors today. Nearly 90% of organizations have already suffered an identity-centric breach, research shows.

However, Palo Alto Networks said companies using identity-driven security controls can speed up their breach response by up to 80% by preventing attackers from abusing credentials and excessive access.

"The emerging wave of AI agents will require us to secure every identity — human, machine, and agent. This is why we moved decisively by announcing our intent to acquire CyberArk last July and am excited to have product integration begin," said Nikesh Arora, chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks.

"For our customers, this means the end of 'identity silos.' They can now manage privileged access across their entire hybrid cloud environment from the same company they trust for network security and security operations — to ensure they are secure in the AI era."

CyberArk integration beckons

CyberArk's Identity Security solutions will still be available as a standalone platform, but the two firms are working to integrate CyberArk's capabilities into the Palo Alto Networks security ecosystem.

There'll be no disruption for existing customers, the duo claimed.

"This is a win-win: our customers gain access to the world's most comprehensive security portfolio, and our employees join a global innovation engine," said Matt Cohen, CEO of CyberArk. "Together, we are creating the most robust combination of proven technologies to stop identity-driven breaches."

Under the terms of the agreement, CyberArk shareholders will receive $45.00 in cash and 2.2005 shares of Palo Alto Networks common stock for each CyberArk ordinary share.

Following the deal, Palo Alto Networks plans to pursue a secondary listing on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, adopting the "CYBR" ticker. It will continue to be listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, trading under the "PANW" ticker.

The closure of the CyberArk deal follows the completion last month of Palo Alto Networks’ $3.35 billion acquisition of Chronosphere, a cloud-native observability provider.

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The European Commission (EC) has officially approved Google’s proposed acquisition of cloud security firm Wiz.

In a statement confirming the move, the Commission said it concluded the deal would not raise competition concerns across the European Economic Area (EEA).

Teresa Ribera, European Commissioner for Competition, said the probe concluded that regardless of the acquisition, Google “stands behind Amazon and Microsoft” in terms of market share in areas such as cloud infrastructure.

“Based on its market investigation, the Commission found that there are several credible competitors that customers could switch to if Google were to bundle Wiz's multi-cloud security platform with its existing products, or in case Wiz's platform no longer worked with clouds other than Google's,” the EC said in a statement.

The EC also investigated whether Google would gain access to “commercially sensitive data” pertaining to cloud competitors that integrated with Wiz solutions, again confirming there was no risk.

“The market investigation confirmed that the data that Google would obtain as a result of the transaction is not commercially sensitive, and can generally be accessed by other security software companies,” the Commission said.

The confirmation marks the latest hurdle cleared by Google in its pursuit of the cloud security firm. In November last year, a US antitrust review approved the deal.

Google announced plans to acquire the cloud security company in March 2025 in a deal worth $32 billion.

The deal marked the largest acquisition in the company’s history, more than double the fee for its deal to acquire Motorola in 2012.

At the time, Google said a key factor behind the acquisition lay in addressing “two large and growing trends in the AI era” - cloud security and multi-cloud adoption.

Wiz was founded in 2020 in Israel before moving operations to the US. The startup reported rapid growth in the years preceding the deal. At the time Google announced the acquisition, headcount at the firm stood at 900 and the firm was valued at $12 billion.

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ControlUp has announced the acquisition of Unipath, an AI-powered security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) platform provider, for an undisclosed fee.

The move will expand ControlUp’s autonomous endpoint management (AEM) offering, bringing a new agentic AI framework that learns from employee interactions, autonomously diagnoses issues, and generates remediations to free up time for IT teams.

Founded in 2024, Unipath’s AI SOAR platform applies automated analysis, integrated intelligence, and an expansive data layer to cut incident response times by up to 90%.

In an announcement, ControlUp CEO Jed Ayres said the acquisition will help take AEM “from vision to reality” for its customers.

“By bringing Unipath’s agentic AI into the ControlUp platform, we can resolve issues directly and in real-time, often without involving the helpdesk,” he commented.

“And we’re doing this with the governance and security standards required by banks, hospitals, and global enterprises, so a self-healing workplace becomes not just possible, but practical and trusted.”

Self-learning remediation

ControlUp’s own digital employee experience (DEX) software is designed to deliver real-time visibility by collecting telemetry every three seconds across thousands of signals to drive remediation and automation.

By integrating Unipath, the firm is now shifting towards a new self-learning remediation model that can anticipate issues and determine actions based on context, real-time data, and employee input.

Users also stand to benefit from continuously improved outcomes over time, the company claimed.

Specifically, ControlUp said Unipath adds expertise in contextual decisioning, rapid time-to-value automation, and AI-led operations.

AI roadmap

ControlUp’s AI roadmap also now extends across three layers. The first – dubbed Intelligent Insight – focuses on the company’s real-time, three-second telemetry to deliver the foundational data for anomaly detection, variance analysis, and experience scoring.

The second layer covers Conversational AI, with LLM-powered interactions designed to help employees resolve issues through natural language and without IT assistance.

Meanwhile, the third centers on Agentic AI and Automation, leveraging Unipath’s technology to deliver remediations based on outcomes and context

Integration

Unipath’s capabilities will be integrated into ControlUp’s ONE platform in phases throughout 2026, with early access available for select customers and partners.

Founder and CEO Mike Admon said the acquisition will further amplify its own mission to simplify automation and boost security teams’ productivity.

“By combining our agentic AI with ControlUp’s real-time DEX platform, we’re creating something entirely new,” he explained. “We are delivering technology that understands the problem, determines the action, and creates the resolution on its own.

“We're joining ControlUp because we share a vision for AI that reduces complexity and helps organizations operate without friction.”

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Westcon-Comstor has announced the acquisition of cybersecurity distributor REAL Security, marking the company’s entry into the Balkan market.

Founded in Slovenia in 2002, REAL Security operates in eight countries across the region, connecting cybersecurity vendors with VARs, MSPs and MSSPs in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Albania, and North Macedonia.

The firm is known for its focus on emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, and blockchain, and as the organizer of the regional cybersecurity event, RISK.

In an announcement, Westcon-Comstor CEO David Grant said the acquisition strengthens the company’s ability to support partners “across the breadth of the European cybersecurity landscape.”

“REAL Security’s trusted relationships and consistent execution make it an outstanding strategic fit,” he explained. “We look forward to building on our shared values, culture and ambition as we accelerate growth and create new opportunities across the region.”

The move is Westcon-Comstor’s first buy since its agreement to acquire specialist AWS consultancy Rebura in January 2024. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Unlocking value

Since its founding more than 20 years ago, REAL Security has steadily expanded its presence and now works with more than 300 partners across the Balkans, serving more than 3,400 customers.

The company has built its reputation on deep technical expertise, strong knowledge of the regional market, and a track record of success in the fast-growing Balkan cybersecurity market.

REAL credits this growth to a mix of strategic initiatives, organic expansion, alongside the forging of strong partnerships with leading vendors.

Post-acquisition, Westcon-Comstor said it will combine REAL’s market positioning and alliances with its own advanced data-driven and digital capabilities to unlock new value across the region.

“This acquisition allows us to execute at speed in high-growth markets and expand the availability of in-demand cybersecurity solutions throughout the region,” said Willem de Haan, executive vice president of Corporate Development at Westcon-Comstor.

Channel reach

Renato Uhl, CEO and co-founder at REAL Security, described the acquisition as an “exciting step” in the company’s evolution that will enable the business to benefit from Westcon-Comstor’s extensive resources.

“In addition to Westcon-Comstor’s unrivalled channel reach and global cybersecurity strength, we have huge respect for the way the company has retained its emphasis on people and culture,” he said.

“I am immensely proud of the REAL Security team and everything we have achieved together.

“Now it’s time to take our business to the next level by harnessing Westcon-Comstor’s unique data-led approach and digital maturity in partnership with our new colleagues.”

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Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike has signed a definitive agreement to acquire SGNL, a California-based startup specializing in identity security.

The proposed acquisition has been pegged at around $740 million and is expected to close during CrowdStrike’s first quarter of FY2027, subject to customary closing conditions.

The move will see SGNL’s dynamic Continuous Identity privilege and access capabilities integrated into the vendor’s Falcon platform to enable access for human, non-human (NHI), and AI identities to be continuously granted and revoked based on real-time risk.

In an announcement, George Kurtz, CEO and co-founder of CrowdStrike, said the speed and access at which AI agents operate make them a privileged identity that must be protected.

“With SGNL, CrowdStrike will deliver continuous, real-time access control that eliminates the known and unknown gaps from legacy standing privileges,” he explained.

“We’re disrupting the premise of modern privilege and access – for every identity, human or machine. This is identity security built for the AI era.”

Enhanced identity security

CrowdStrike’s Falcon Next-Gen Identity Security offering is designed to secure the full hybrid identity lifecycle, unifying initial access prevention, privileged access management (PAM), identity threat detection and response (ITDR), SaaS identity security, and agentic identity protection.

SGNL operates as the runtime access enforcement layer between modern identity providers and the SaaS and hyperscaler resources. By integrating the technology into Falcon, SGNL will leverage the platform’s real-time intelligence and risk signals to continuously evaluate identity, device, and behaviour to control access as conditions change.

CrowdStrike said the addition of SGNL will eliminate standing privileges for humans, NHIs, and AI agents, as well as enable access enforcement across all major identity systems – extending Falcon Next-Gen Identity Security’s Just In Time access across major cloud identity and SaaS systems such as AWS IAM and Okta.

Continuous access evaluation protocol (CAEP)-driven driven enforcement will also be integrated into Falcon Fusion SOAR, adding the ability to revoke access beyond the identity provider to bolster protection against misconfiguration-driven breaches.

Additionally, SGNL will help unify hybrid identity security across on-premises, SaaS, and cloud environments, the vendor added.

Commenting on the company’s acquisition. SGNL’s CEO and co-founder, Scott Kriz, said the company was founded with the aim of connecting access decisions with ‘business reality’.

“The world needs our technology to eradicate the significant risk that legacy standing privileges expose in today and tomorrow’s environments,” he commented.

“Joining CrowdStrike provides us with global scale natively through cybersecurity’s leading platform to transform enterprise security with Continuous Identity, furthering CrowdStrike’s mission of stopping breaches.”

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Digital identity specialist Ping Identity has acquired biometric authentication firm Keyless, bringing zero-knowledge biometrics and advanced re-verification capabilities to its identity security platform.

The move aims to bolster verified trust across the enterprise by expanding access to device-independent, cryptographically protected biometric authentication and re-verification, as AI security threats grow in sophistication.

Available to Ping customers now, Keyless offers patented zero-knowledge biometrics technology that enables speedy multi-factor authentication and user re-verification in under 300 milliseconds.

Each re-verification deploys advanced cryptographic techniques to ensure biometric data is never stored in retrievable or reconstructable form – eliminating the need for a dedicated device in the battle against impersonation, deepfakes, and account takeover attacks.

In an announcement, Andre Durand, Ping’s CEO and founder, said the acquisition of the London-headquartered company comes as AI continues to accelerate identity-based security attacks.

“Authentication must be resilient and simple to use, while simultaneously ensuring the originally verified user is who they say they are,” he explained. “Keyless delivers privacy-preserving biometrics that make strong verification effortless.

“Now that the acquisition is complete, we can bring this simplicity and strength to customers across every digital interaction.”

Continuous identity assurance

By integrating Keyless’ technology with its own security platform, Ping said the expanded offering is primed for customer, workforce, and B2B identity use cases.

Enterprises gain the ability to support continuous identity assurance across all stages of the identity lifecycle, prevent account takeover and identity fraud with a single glance, as well as implement passwordless multifactor authentication (MFA) and seamless single sign-on.

The combined capabilities enable mobile and frontline workers to re-verify in under 300ms, while protecting critical user activity such as account creation and recovery, in line with global privacy and security regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, eIDAS 2.0, and PSD3.

Andrea Carmignani, CEO and co-founder of Keyless, described the acquisition as a “major milestone” for the company that will help scale its technology globally.

“Zero-Knowledge Biometrics allow organisations to re-verify the originally verified identity across the entire journey—onboarding, access, step up, and recovery—without ever exposing biometric data,” he said. “Together with Ping, we can deliver that level of protection at a global scale.”

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

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Accenture has announced plans to acquire UK-based AI company Faculty as the consultancy looks to drive client adoption of the technology.

In a statement confirming the deal, Accenture said Faculty FrontierTM, the company’s enterprise-grade decision intelligence platform, will be integrated with Accenture’s core product suites.

This, the consultancy said, will help organizations make “better, faster decisions by connecting data, AI models, and business processes into a unified decision system”.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed and the deal is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval, according to Accenture.

More than 400 Faculty employees will move over to Accenture following the acquisition. This includes Faculty chief executive Marc Warner, who will assume the role of chief technology officer (CTO) and joining the company’s global management committee.

“With Faculty, we will further accelerate our strategy to bring trusted, advanced AI to the heart of our clients’ businesses,” said Julie Sweet, chair and CEO at Accenture.

“I’m pleased to welcome the Faculty team to Accenture and look forward to Marc's contribution shaping our technology vision and strategy as Chief Technology Officer."

What Accenture gets with the Faculty acquisition

Faculty and Accenture have maintained long-standing ties dating back to 2023, with the consultancy confirmed as Faculty’s preferred implementation partner for the FrontierTM platform.

The UK-based firm was founded in 2014 and has rapidly established itself as one of the country’s leading AI companies, capitalizing on the generative AI boom in recent years and working closely with both public and private sector clients to drive adoption.

The company helped build the NHS’ Early Warning System during the Covid-19 pandemic, for example. The system was used by NHS Gold Command to predict patient demand across the UK and help allocate care resources.

Notably, Faculty offers AI consulting services for clients, placing a particular focus on safe and responsible AI adoption, and has worked with OpenAI and Anthropic to improve ethical development and AI safety for frontier models.

Commenting on the deal, Warner said the company aims to continue its AI safety focus post-acquisition.

“Our vision has always been a world in which safe AI delivers widespread benefits to humanity. We have spent the last ten years supporting our clients to bring this world about, step by step,” he said.

“As AI advances rapidly, the ambition of our clients is now, rightly, no less than the reinvention of their business. I am delighted that by teaming up with Accenture, we have everything in place to support AI transformation from start to finish.”

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Qualcomm has completed its acquisition of Alphawave IP Group for a reported $2.4 billion, as the communications technology giant continues its expansion into the data center.

First announced back in June 2025, the transaction has been wrapped up around one financial quarter ahead of schedule.

Dual-headquartered in London and Toronto, Alphawave IP Group – operationally known as Alphawave Semi – specializes in high-speed wired connectivity, offering custom silicon, connectivity products, and chiplets geared towards high performance and power efficiency.

Qualcomm said the move will create a “leading player” in AI compute and connectivity solutions, as well as provide key assets for its expansion into data centers.

“Alphawave Semi’s expertise in high-speed connectivity technologies complements our Qualcomm Oryon CPU and Hexagon NPU processors,” explained Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm’s president and CEO, in an announcement.

“Qualcomm delivers high-performance, energy-efficient compute and AI solutions, and the addition of Alphawave’s technologies will strengthen our platforms and optimize performance for next-generation AI data centers.”

Aphawave Semi’s high-speed connectivity solutions are designed to drive data transfer improvements across a range of environments and technologies, including data centers, AI, 5G, networking, and storage.

The firm’s portfolio spans connectivity IP, chiplets, and advanced connectivity products built around high-performance serializer/deserializer (SerDes), controllers, and UCIe.

These offerings are designed to support next-gen electrical and optical interconnects for higher bandwidth and lower latency in hyperscale and AI systems, while Alphawave Semi’s custom silicon design services help customers accelerate development of enhanced chips for their infrastructure.

As part of the company’s acquisition, Alphawave’s CEO and co-founder, Tony Pialis, will now lead the Qualcomm data center business.

“Joining Qualcomm marks an exciting new chapter for Alphawave Semi,” Pialis commented. “We’re ready to bring our leadership in high-speed connectivity and custom silicon to help shape the future of data center innovation.”

The news follows Qualcomm’s acquisition of Ventana Micro Systems earlier this month – a deal the company said will bolster its RISC-V CPU development capabilities and drive fresh Oryon advancements.

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A trade body representing European cloud providers is continuing its fight against Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware.

Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) has made a formal statement to the General Court of the European Union, outlining its concerns.

The complaint argues that by approving the merger, the European Commission (EC) enabled Broadcom to monetize VMware’s pre-existing dominance in server virtualization software.

Moreover, CISPE argued the EC ignored the known risks presented by the deal, allowing the firm to exploit its dominant position and massively increase pricing.

In a statement, CISPE pointed out that Broadcom’s CEO publicly committed to lifting VMware’s standalone earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) from between $4.7 and $5.0 billion to $8.5 billion within three years of closing.

This increase of 60 to 80% in a market growing at only 5% to 8% annually couldn't realistically come from organic growth or efficiencies, the trade body noted, but only from the aggressive monetization of VMware’s locked-in customer base through steep price rises and forced bundling.

CISPE is also unhappy about the way the deal is being financed, with Broadcom having raised $28.4 billion in new debt and assuming around $8 billion of VMware’s existing debt to fund the acquisition.

This, CISPE added, created a powerful financial incentive to extract cash rapidly from VMware’s installed base, reinforcing the provider’s market power and incentivizing aggressive pricing strategies.

CISPE claims EC ignored warnings

Notably, CISPE claims the EC ignored repeated warnings from customers and industry associations, failing to examine - or even mention - the risk that Broadcom would use VMware’s dominance to drive substantial price increases and tighten contractual lock-in.

Since the acquisition, prices have skyrocketed, in some cases by as much 1,500%.

Meanwhile, the trade body noted that multi-year subscriptions and bundling of VMware products have been forced on users - with significant cost consequences for European cloud providers and their customers.

“The Commission looked at this merger through half-closed eyes and declared it safe. By rubber stamping the deal, Brussels handed Broadcom a blank cheque to raise prices, lock-in and squeeze customers. Broadcom has, predictably cashed this cheque with interest," said Francisco Mingorence, secretary general of CISPE.

"This was a failure of oversight by the regulator with real world costs for Europe’s cloud sector, and every organization that depends upon it.”

The statement comes in response to the European Commission’s defence of its 2023 decision approving the $61 billion deal.

If CISPE succeeds in persuading the court to annul the acquisition, the Commission will be forced to re-examine it - creating significant legal uncertainty for Broadcom’s shareholders, creditors, customers, suppliers and investors, CISPE pointed out.

MORE FROM ITPRO

• Is a VMware exodus looming? Disgruntled customers are actively seeking alternative providers
• CISPE pushes EU Court to reexamine Broadcom's VMware acquisition
• Broadcom EMEA CTO claims the company has been able to solve most of its customer issues following VMware acquisition

IBM has announced plans to acquire Confluent in an $11 billion deal analysts said will rapidly accelerate the cloud giant’s AI data streaming capabilities.

In a statement confirming the acquisition, IBM described Confluent as a “natural fit” for its hybrid cloud and AI strategy, enabling “end-to-end integration of applications, analytics, data systems and AI agents”.

Confluent is an open source data streaming platform, based on Kafka, providing real-time data flows for applications, analytics tools, and AI. The logic behind the acquisition, according to IBM, lies in surging demand for real-time, high quality data required to underpin AI models and agents.

Analysis from IDC, for example, predicts that by 2028, global data volumes will more than double, with upwards of one billion new applications set to emerge. With this comes the need for seamless data streaming capabilities, the company noted.

This has been a common recurring challenge for enterprises driving AI adoption over the last three years. Data sources are often contained in disparate silos or across various cloud platforms.

Confluent bridges these gaps, IBM said, helping customers to streamline data flows and more effectively harness data “living across all IT environments”.

“IBM and Confluent together will enable enterprises to deploy generative and agentic AI better and faster by providing trusted communication and data flow between environments, applications, and APIs,” said IBM CEO Arvind Krishna.

“Data is spread across public and private clouds, datacenters and countless technology providers. With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM will provide the smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI.”

Confluent acquisition “strategically significant”

Forrester VP principal analyst Noel Yuhanna described the Confluent deal as a “strategically significant acquisition” for IBM – and one that will supercharge the cloud giant’s AI strategy.

“Real-time data is becoming critical for all applications, analytics, and AI,” he said.

“IBM’s purchase of Confluent brings industry-leading, Kafka-based data streaming directly into its hybrid-cloud and AI strategy, giving enterprises the ‘data-in-motion’ backbone required for modern enterprises that need continuously updated data to support AI workloads.”

IBM previously supported streaming through its Event Streams and IBM MQ platforms, Yuhanna noted. But with Confluent the tech giant now has a “unified, enterprise-grade data platform” that boasts real-time capabilities spanning both hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

“The acquisition positions IBM to simplify customer architectures through a real-time data fabric, tighten the integration between batch and streaming data, and power advanced AI systems with fresher, cleaner, and continuously flowing data,” he said.

Long-term, Yuhanna expects the deal to give IBM a “meaningful competitive edge” as demand for data streaming continues to surge.

Analysis from Verified Market Research in October 2025 found the data streaming market is projected to surge in value between 2024 and 2031, recording a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33.56%.

This market was valued at $30.12 billion in 2024, the study noted, and is expected to reach $252 billion by the end of the forecast period. Confluent has rode the wave of growth in this sector in recent years.

Between 2021 and 2025, the company’s total addressable market (TAM) has doubled, from $50 billion to around $100 billion.

Jay Kreps, CEO and co-founder at Confluent, said he welcomed the next stage of the company’s journey under the IBM umbrella.

“We are excited by the potential to join IBM and to accelerate our strategy with IBM’s go-to-market expertise, global scale and extensive portfolio,” he said. “I look forward to the future we will build together as Confluent becomes part of IBM.”

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IT collaboration software vendor Atlassian has acquired Secoda, a Toronto-based startup specializing in data cataloging, for an undisclosed fee.

Founded in 2021, Secoda’s platform is designed to make organizational data available to everyone, regardless of their technical background. Powered by AI, the offering connects to all data sources, models, pipelines, databases, warehouses, and visualization tools to deliver a unified overview of company data.

Back in September 2023, the company successfully raised $14 million in a Series A funding round, led by Craft Ventures.

Secoda’s data discovery and search capabilities will now be integrated into Atlassian’s Rovo, an AI-powered platform designed to unify organizational data from across Atlassian and third-party SaaS applications.

In a blog post, co-founder Etai Mizrahi said Secoda’s acquisition will accelerate its vision of delivering effortless data access to enterprise teams.

“Joining the Atlassian team is a natural next step on our mission to put knowledge where people actually work,” he commented. “There is an incredibly high overlap between the teams we serve and the teams that run on Atlassian.”

Rovo AI

Atlassian’s enterprise collaboration and management software equips organizations with an AI-powered System of Work designed to drive productivity at scale. According to the company, its solutions are now utilized by more 300,000 customers globally – including the likes of NASA, Rivian, Deutsch Bank, United Airlines, and Bosch.

The vendor’s AI-powered Rovo platform maps the human side of work across organizations, providing context around work and relationships through the tool’s Teamwork Graph, alongside search, chat, and custom AI agent capabilities.

Atlassian’s Secoda purchase is the latest in a string of moves to expand its product suite and capabilities, following the recent acquisitions of intelligence specialist, DX, and The Browser Company.

With Secoda now on board, Atlassian said businesses – especially those tackling complex, enterprise-scale data – will be able to equip employees and agents with the context they need to find answers and take action “right where they work.”

“Secoda’s expertise in dynamically learning, organizing and understanding structured data, paired with their AI-driven semantic cataloging, will strengthen Rovo’s ability to deliver precise, context-rich insights,” explained Tiffany To, executive vice president of Platform and Enterprise at Atlassian.

“We’re excited to welcome Secoda’s talented team to Atlassian, accelerate AI innovation in our System of Work, and help every customer gain more value from their work data.”

Secoda said its existing customers will not see any changes to their experience with its product, with the firm prioritizing continuity as its team joins Atlassian.

“As we integrate, we will migrate parts of our infrastructure and ensure your team is fully supported while we transition to Atlassian's Cloud Platform,” Mizrahi said. “We will publish clear technical plans and timelines well in advance so your team is never surprised.”

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ServiceNow has announced its intent to acquire identity security vendor Veza, in a move the company said will significantly strengthen its enterprise identity governance capabilities.

Founded in 2000, California-headquartered Veza’s AI-native platform equips organizations with identity security tools to control access to critical data, applications, systems, and AI artefacts.

The firm has 230 staff on its books and serves nearly 150 global enterprise customers across banking, hospitality, and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).

Upon completion of the acquisition, ServiceNow plans to integrate Veza – including its patented Access Graph – into its AI Control Tower to strengthen and streamline permission controls at a time when organizations are increasingly adopting autonomous security capabilities.

Veza’s Access Graph maps and analyzes access relationships across human, machine, and AI identities to help security teams visualize security risks and rectify any overly broad permissions.

By partnering Veza with its own expertise in workflow, knowledge graphs, and AI, ServiceNow said its AI Control Tower will be equipped to govern everything that AI agents have access to across enterprises.

“By combining Veza’s industry-first Access Graph with ServiceNow’s AI Control Tower and agentic workflows, we can give customers a true single pane of glass, with control of every identity in their organization,” explained Amit Zavery, ServiceNow’s president, chief operating officer, and chief product officer, in an announcement.

“Together, we’ll empower CISOs and security teams to make safer access decisions that protect their businesses, and to defend their high-value data assets from AI-powered attacks.”

Customers leveraging ServiceNow’s security and risk solutions will also benefit from enhanced identity context through vulnerability response, incident response, and integrated risk management capabilities, the firm said.

Additionally, Veza will complement existing identity features on the ServiceNow AI Platform, including its machine identity console.

“With ServiceNow, we will help customers embrace AI with greater confidence,” commented Veza CEO, Tarun Thakur.

“Together, we can turn identity governance and identity security into a strategic advantage by giving organizations clear, integrated control over every type of identity — whether it belongs to a person, a machine, or an AI agent.”

The acquisition is subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Northamber has announced the acquisition of Nuvias UC’s UK hardware business for £7.1 million, as the distributor looks to strengthen its presence in the audiovisual (AV) and unified communications (UC) markets.

NUC Distribution will merge with Northamber’s own portfolio to create a unified, scalable platform that covers the full spectrum of AV, UC&C, and smart office solutions.

The agreement follows Surrey-based Northamber’s previous acquisitions of Tempura Communications back in 2024 and Epatra earlier this year.

With this latest buy, Northamber said it is deepening its capabilities across Microsoft Teams and Zoom-certified video systems, enterprise voice and telephony, specialist UC endpoints, as well as smart workspace and meeting-room solutions.

“The addition of the highly specialist team from Nuvias UC to our group significantly broadens our UC and AV capabilities,” commented Alex Phillips, chairman of Northamber.

“We are delighted to have this opportunity, which, alongside our existing domestic and international portfolio, will accelerate our growth in one of the fastest-evolving technology markets.”

Partner benefits

The acquisition adds £28.8m in hardware revenue and bolsters Northamber’s capabilities across Microsoft Teams Rooms, Zoom Rooms, and hybrid working ecosystems, while absorbing the Nuvias UC team’s broad expertise.

More than 700 UK customers will now join Northamber’s ecosystem, extending the firm’s reach into the mid-market and enterprise, public sector, and service provider segments.

For UK channel partners, Northamber said the acquisition will provide ‘significant benefits’ – such as improved availability, stronger vendor alignment, expanded technical support, as well as comprehensive collaboration solutions.

The move comes as vendors increasingly favor specialist partners that can offer a combination of scale, reliability, and technical depth – while customers prefer suppliers that can provide complete solutions, according to Phillips.

“Having two highly complementary businesses in the Northamber Group means partners have a single, specialist route for end-to-end collaboration technology,” he explained.

“It is part of our long-term strategy to deepen our AV capabilities, strengthen UC and collaboration, add specialist services, and scale through strategic, targeted acquisitions.”

A natural fit

Having sold its hardware arm, Nuvias UC’s remaining software and services division will now operate under the Konekt brand as the company centers its focus on cloud communications and services.

Commenting on the future of the hardware business, Konekt CEO Joel Chimoindes said Northamber offers the scale and technical capabilities to support customers through the next phase of market growth.

“Their focus on AV and UC makes this a natural fit, and we are confident our teams and partners will benefit from the combined strength of the portfolio and expertise,” he added.

“As this part of the business transitions to Northamber, we are looking forward to our continued growth as we focus on supporting partners through our cloud communications platforms and services.”

Palo Alto Networks has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire next-gen observability platform, Chronosphere, for $3.35 billion.

The deal is expected to close in the second half of the cyber security firm’s fiscal 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

Palo Alto said the move will enable it to deliver next-generation observability capabilities for modern applications and AI workloads that require constant uptime and resilience.

Established in 2019, Chronosphere’s platform is designed to deliver always-on observability, built on architecture capable of scaling for the AI era and tackling large cloud data volumes.

Post-acquisition, the platform will be paired with Palo Alto’s Cortex AgentiX to create an autonomous remediation solution that expands beyond passive monitoring.

“Chronosphere was built to scale for the data demands of the AI era from day one, which is why it is chosen by leading AI-native and born-in-the-cloud organizations,” said Nikesh Arora, Palo Alto chairman and CEO, in an announcement.

“And once we leverage AgentiX with Chronosphere, we will take observability from simple dashboards to real-time, agentic remediation. We are excited to not just enter this space, but to disrupt it."

Agentic remediation

Chronosphere will bring telemetry pipeline capabilities to Palo Alto’s platforms to help drive customers’ data transformation and make large-scale data ingestion economically viable at scale.

The new, combined solution will deploy AI agents on the large amounts of data monitored by Chronosphere’s platform to autonomously investigate the root cause of performance issues and close the loop through agentic remediation.

Customers stand to benefit from deeper visibility across both security and observability data at petabyte scale, Palo Alto said, as well as "significant cost efficiencies” thanks to Chronosphere’s optimized data ingestion architecture.

‘Perfect strategic partner’

For Chronosphere, the deal follows a period of strong growth, having reported annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $160 million as of the end of September 2025, representing triple-digit growth year-over-year.

Commenting on the company’s acquisition, Martin Mao, Chronosphere’s cofounder and CEO, described Palo Alto as “the perfect strategic partner” for its customers, partners, and employees.

“It allows us to combine our disruptive observability platform with the world's best security company, accelerating our momentum in solving the most complex data and resiliency challenges,” he said.

“Together, we look forward to continuing to partner with industry-leading cloud and AI-native customers across the world on their mission-critical observability and security needs."

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Data resilience specialist Veeam has signed a definitive agreement to acquire data security posture management (DSPM) provider Securiti AI for $1.725 billion.

Founded in 2018 by former Symantec executive Rehan Jalil, Securiti AI’s platform is designed to enable the safe use of data and AI across hybrid, multi-cloud, and SaaS environments.

The move will see the firm’s DPSM, privacy, governance, and AI trust tools integrated with Veeam’s data resilience platform to help customers better manage, protect, and recover fragmented data across apps, clouds, SaaS, endpoints, and backups.

Veeam said the combination will equip CIOs, CISOs, and CDOs with a unified command center for full control of their organization’s entire data estate, as well as the ability to secure, recover, and rollback data and AI.

The transaction is expected to close in Q4, subject to the usual customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

In an announcement, Veeam CEO, Anand Eswaran, said the acquisition comes as the industry enters a “new era for data.”

“It’s no longer about just protecting data from cyber threats and unforeseen disasters; it’s also about identifying all your data, ensuring it’s governed and trusted to power AI transparently,” he explained. “This is the single most critical factor in failed AI initiatives.

“By combining the market-leading strengths of Veeam and Securiti AI, we bring those capabilities together in a single solution to help customers understand, secure, recover, and rollback, and unleash their data to drive new business value.”

Upon completion of the deal, Security AI CEO Rehan Jalil will join Veeam as president of the vendor’s security and AI division.

The experienced leader previously founded Elastica, which merged with Bluecoat for $280 million before the joint business was later snapped up by security giant Symantec in a deal totalling $4.7 billion. Prior to that, he also was the founder and CEO of WiChorus, which was acquired by Tellabs for $180 million.

Commenting on his latest venture, Jalil said Veeam will enable more organizations to leverage Securiti AI’s data protection tools to drive greater value from AI technologies.

“Bringing together our unique capabilities with Veeam, the global leader in data resilience, creates a new value proposition for customers with one data command center delivering data resilience, DSPM, privacy, governance, and AI trust for your entire data estate,” he explained.

“Veeam’s global reach and innovation, combined with our technology and intelligence, will provide customers with unmatched business resilience and security to fully unlock the benefits of AI.”

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Check Point has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire AI-native security platform Lakera.

The move will equip Check Point with the tools to deliver a full end-to-end AI security stack to protect organizations as they continue to embed LLMs, generative AI, and autonomous agents into core workflows.

Financial terms were not disclosed but Check Point said the acquisition is expected to close in Q4 2025, subject to the usual customary closing conditions.

Post-acquisition, Lakera will also form the foundation of Check Point’s Global Center of Excellence for AI Security, which works to drive AI security research, innovation, and integration across the firm’s Infinity Platform.

Check Point’s portfolio already offers security tools such as GenAI Protect, SaaS and API security, advanced data loss prevention, and machine learning-powered defenses for applications, cloud, and endpoints.

By combining Lakera’s runtime protection with its own AI-powered Infinity architecture, the vendor said enterprises will now be able to secure the full lifecycle of AI, including models, agents, and data.

"AI is transforming every business process, but it also introduces new attack surfaces,” commented Nadav Zafrir, CEO at Check Point.

“We chose Lakera because it brings AI-native security, superior precision, and speed at scale. Together we are setting the benchmark for how enterprises adopt and trust AI.”

Check Point eyes AI-native security gains

Founded in 2021 by AI experts from Google and Meta, Lakera operates major AI R&D centers in Zurich and San Francisco.

Its flagship solutions, Lakera Red and Lakera Guard, offer pre-deployment posture assessments and real-time runtime enforcement to secure LLMs, AI agents, and multimodal workflows.

The platform combines advanced runtime protection with continuous red learning, backed by adversarial AI network Gandalf’s dataset of 80 million-plus adversarial patterns as well as a dedicated AI research team.

In terms of results, Lakera’s offering has been shown to deliver detection rates of above 98% with sub-50ms latency, alongside a false positives rate of below 0.5%.

“Lakera was purpose-built for the AI era, with real-time runtime security and research at its core,” said David Haber, Lakera co-founder and CEO. “Joining Check Point allows us to accelerate and scale our mission globally.

“Together we will protect LLMs, generative AI, and agents with the speed, accuracy, and guardrails enterprises need to embrace AI with confidence.”

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RingCentral has announced an expansion of its RingCX platform with the acquisition of AI workforce management (WFM) provider, CommunityWFM.

CommunityWFM’s advanced, AI-driven workforce management tools will be integrated into the contact center platform to further streamline contact center operations and improve the agent experience, the vendor said.

Founded in 2005, CommunityWFM’s cloud-based workforce management platform unifies staff-focused capabilities such as intelligent scheduling, time and attendance tracking, labor analytics, and compliance management.

In an announcement, RingCentral president and COO, Kira Makagon, said the move positions the company to deliver the “next level” of innovation in the WFM market. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“By providing CommunityWFM's AI-driven workforce management capabilities together with our AI-first RingCX platform, we're giving businesses the complete set of tools to optimize operations while empowering their people—creating the foundation for superior agent performance and effortless customer experiences,” she explained.

Flexible WFM

The CommunityWFM platform offers AI-based scheduling and automated management of shift preferences for streamlined interaction between management and staff, improved data-driven decision making, while avoiding the costs of over or understaffing.

With its integration, RingCX customers will be able to leverage automated schedule adjustment, real-time adherence monitoring and alerts, as well as an agent portal and mobile app for processing activities such as shift swaps and time off requests.

RingCentral said CommunityWFM’s AI-driven forecasting and scheduling algorithms complement its existing analytics and automation capabilities to create a single vendor solution that tackles both operational efficiency and agent experience.

“Adding AI Workforce Management to our portfolio allows us to extend our AI-first innovation to a complete portfolio of AI-based products - starting from agentic AI assistance, to real time guidance, quality management, analytics, and now AI-powered workforce management," Makagon added.

The new capabilities are available to RingCX customers as RingCentral AI WFM and can be implemented as an add-on to RingCX, starting from $20 per agent per month.

Amplified efficiency

Commenting on the acquisition, Daryl Gonos, CEO and co-founder of CommunityWFM, said RingCentral’s reach and resources will amplify the company’s ability to deliver contact center efficiencies across hybrid environments.

"We've already seen the impact firsthand—RingCentral uses our Workforce Management platform that is integrated with RingCX to optimize their own customer support operations,” he explained.

“By leveraging AI-driven forecasting to deliver more accurate workforce predictions with significantly less manual analysis, we're creating an intelligent, unified experience that not only simplifies today's workforce operations, but also anticipates the future needs of hybrid work environments and evolving customer demands."

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Secure access service edge (SASE) vendor Cato Networks has announced the acquisition of Aim Security, an Israeli startup focused on AI security, for an undisclosed fee.

The deal marks Cato Network's first acquisition and follows a period of strong growth, with the company recently surpassing $300 million in annual recurring revenue and securing an additional $50 million investment from Acrew Capital, taking its total Series G funding round to $409 million.

Founded in 2022, Aim Security has quickly established itself as a leading player in AI security, with its focus on addressing the evolving AI attack surface.

Aim's security capabilities will be integrated into the Cato SASE Cloud Platform to help enterprises securely adopt AI agents as well as public and private AI applications at a time when SASE adoption continues to climb.

"AI transformation will eclipse digital transformation as the main force that will shape enterprises over the next decade," commented Cato Networks' CEO and co-founder, Shlomo Kramer, in an announcement. "With the acquisition of Aim Security, we're turbo-charging our SASE platform with advanced AI security capabilities to secure our customers' journey into the new and exciting AI era."

Aim Security AI

Supported by a unified and advanced core engine and underpinned by a dedicated research team, Aim Security's offering spans various use cases, working to secure employee use of public AI applications, private AI applications and AI agents, as well as the agentic AI development lifecycle using AI security posture management (AI-SPM).

Employees can leverage Aim to securely use public and enterprise AI agents such as Microsoft Copilot, develop with new AI coding agents such as Cursor, as well as utilize local agents with Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers.

The Aim AI Firewall also secures internal AI applications and agents against runtime attacks and enforces corporate security and governance policies on all interactions.

Additionally, the solution works to secure the entire development lifecycle, from training ML models to building custom AI agents, through continuous discovery, detection, and remediation.

Cato Networks said the addition of Aim Security will extend the capabilities of its SASE Cloud Platform to enable organizations to address the unstructured nature of AI interactions, while tackling threats across the evolving AI attack surface.

Cato customers with current AI security requirements can deploy Aim today, while the capabilities will be offered as part of its SASE platform in early 2026 along with a "seamless migration path" for those that deployed the standalone solution.

Matan Getz, co-founder and CEO of Aim Security, said many organizations are already benefiting from the solution's ability to secure AI adoption, including one of the world's largest financial services companies.

"Aim had purpose-built a broad AI security platform, grounded in cutting-edge research and patented technology, designed to seamlessly integrate into complex enterprise environments," he explained. "Aim's solutions enable businesses to securely reap the benefits of their AI investments."

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• Varonis snaps up AI email security specialist SlashNext
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Varonis has announced plans to acquire SlashNext, an AI-native email security vendor that specializes in phishing and social engineering detection.

Founded in 2017 by Atif Mushtaq, one of the main architects behind FireEye’s malware detection technology, SlashNext uses AI to defend organizations from multi-channel phishing attacks.

The solution will be integrated into Varonis’ Data Security Platform to enable advanced protection against AI-generated threats sent via email, SMS, and messaging services such as WhatsApp, Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams.

By combining the two offerings, Varonis said it is aiming to deliver a comprehensive platform capable of thwarting threats long before their data is impacted.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed in the company’s announcement but reports suggest the deal could total up to $150 million.

Commenting on the agreement, Varonis co-founder and CEO Yaki Faitelson described the acquisition as a “natural evolution” of the company’s platform, with the move set to “significantly expand” its total addressable market.

“By connecting the dots between email, identity, and data we will dramatically increase the value of our MDDR service and help customers stop threats in their inbox, where many data breaches begin,” he said.

Varonis eyes email security gains

SlashNext leverages predictive AI models that use techniques such as computer vision, natural language processing, and virtual browsers to protect users against attacks across communication and collaboration platforms.

The technology identifies characteristics in tone and style to reveal the intent and motive of the attacker before training itself on the core threat as well as possible variations that it self-generates.

In an independent test of cloud security vendors conducted by The Tolly Group back in 2024, SlashNext was found to demonstrate the highest overall detection accuracy (99%) when compared with its market competitors, and scored a perfect 100% detection rate for business email compromise (BEC) and QR code attacks.

“At SlashNext, we built a fast, automated solution to stop advanced threats across communication channels,” commented Atif Mushtaq, SlashNext’s founder and CPO.

“I’m excited to join the Varonis team on their mission to protect the world’s data, giving customers end-to-end protection from the first point of attack to the last."

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Identity security specialist Okta has announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Israeli privileged access management (PAM) startup, Axiom Security.

The move will expand the Okta Privilege Access platform with Axiom’s PAM capabilities as the vendor looks to help customers further extend their security fabric.

Founded in 2021, Axiom Security provides a cloud-native, identity-centric PAM platform designed to assist organizations in eliminating standing privileges and secure access to critical infrastructure. The solution offers Just-In-Time (JIT) access, automated request and approval workflows, as well as user access reviews.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed but Okta said it expects the transaction to be completed in September, with Axiom’s capabilities to be integrated into its wider PAM offering “over the coming months.”

In an announcement, Okta’s chief technology officer Abhi Sawant said the addition of Axiom will help solve more use cases through additional security controls and connectors to critical infrastructure resources such as databases and Kubernetes.

“Axiom’s technology will be integrated into Okta Privileged Access, expanding access controls to more sensitive resources that Okta customers can use to further strengthen their identity security fabric, so they can manage the types of privileged access across resources and use cases in their environment,” he explained.

Extended identity security

Post-integration, Okta Privileged Access will equip customers with a wider range of capabilities, including unified control through a single point of administration for privileged access across all privileged resources, whether on-premises or in the cloud.

Organizations will also be able to eliminate standing privileges and provide time-limited access thanks to Axiom’s Just-In-TIme (JIT) functionality.

By automating permissions for elevated access to environments such as GitHub, Snowflake, PostgreSQL, and Amazon EKS, Okta said the addition will help reduce operational overhead and risks.

The integration also brings more connectors through AI-based application connector builder capabilities, alongside secure access to Kubernetes and databases for least-privileged access and full traceability.

“As more enterprises bring AI into their workforces, privileged access controls are a key defense layer to properly mitigate AI-related risks,” Sawant added.

“This acquisition will help Okta customers extend their identity security fabric to more privileged accounts and resources, ensuring a single control plane for managing privileged access, whether on-prem or in the cloud.”

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HR software specialist Workday has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Paradox, a candidate experience platform powered by conversational AI.

Paradox’s solution leverages AI to simplify the entire job application journey, particularly for high-volume frontline industries.

Upon completion, Workday said the talent acquisition suite will now help its customers more efficiently find, hire, and onboard all worker types, whether frontline or office staff, and across full-time and contingent roles.

Financial terms were not disclosed but the deal is set to close in the third quarter of Workday’s fiscal year 2026, which ends on October 31st 2025, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

In an announcement, Gerrit Kazmaier, Workday’s president of product and technology, said the acquisition will help streamline the hiring process by eliminating the pitfalls of outdated processes and disconnected tools.

"By bringing Paradox's candidate experience AI agent into Workday, we're giving organizations a smarter, faster, and more engaging way to connect with candidates,” he explained.

“Together, we'll help our customers move from transactional recruiting to transformative hiring that helps deliver talent, in less time, and with a better experience for everyone."

Candidate experience efficiencies

Paradox’s platform has been designed to drive candidate experience efficiencies at scale by providing every candidate with a personalized, high-touch interaction using AI.

Applicants receive instant responses, self-scheduling capabilities, alongside around-the-clock support as they navigate the recruitment process, while organizations can more efficiently fill high-volume roles.

According to Paradox, the platform has powered more than 189 million AI-assisted candidate conversations and enabled candidate conversion rates of over 70%, reducing time-to-hire to as low as three-and-a-half days.

Unified talent acquisition

With Paradox’s integration, Workday will create a unified, intelligent AI-powered talent acquisition suite that combines AI-powered talent discovery and matching through HiredScore, Paradox’s AI-driven candidate conversations, and streamlined hiring with Workday Recruiting.

For Paradox, CEO Adam Godson said the company will benefit from Workday’s more expansive resources and wider global reach.

"From day one, our mission has been to help our customers' recruiting and hiring teams spend more time with people and less time with software," he commented.

"Workday's global reach and comprehensive platform provide the perfect runway for us to accelerate our mission, bringing our proven conversational AI to a much bigger audience and helping more companies around the world transform their hiring processes."

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Northern European MSP Advania has announced the acquisition of Gompute, a high-performance computing (HPC) and AI infrastructure platform, from atNorth.

Financial terms were not disclosed but the deal is set close during the third quarter of 2025, subject to regulatory approval.

Founded in 2022, Gompute offers a full-stack solution for demanding HPC and AI workloads through private cloud services and scalable computing clusters, serving enterprise clients across sectors such as financial services, automotive, and computer-aided engineering (CAE).

The company was acquired by Nordic data center services specialist atNorth in 2023 and conducts its operations from offices located in Sweden and Spain.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Gompute’s teams in both countries will be integrated into Advania Sweden to strengthen its market position in the region and enable clients to meet strict data sovereignty requirements.

In an announcement, Henrik Foyn-Laukvik, Advania’s head of M&A, said organizations now require infrastructure that meets both performance and regulatory demands as AI adoption continues to accelerate.

“With Gompute, we can deliver those capabilities in-region, on-demand, and under full client control, ensuring regulatory compliance without compromising performance,” he explained.

Broader resources

Headquartered in Sweden, Avania specializes in IT services across the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, and Denmark. The firm serves mid-market enterprises and public sector organizations and employs more than 5,000 staff across its seven markets.

Post-acquisition, Gompute customers will be able to leverage Advania’s broader spectrum of AI capabilities, resources, and local expertise across Northern Europe in addition to their existing resources and services.

Additionally, the firm said Gompute’s high-performance computing capabilities will remain central to its operations as it continues to support a growing range of advanced computing needs.

“We are committed to growing Gompute’s role as a trusted HPC platform while expanding its AI potential,” Foyn-Laukvik added.

Continuity

The Gompute platform will continue to serve industries that rely on HPC for compute-intensive workloads across research, development and innovation, with the added benefits of Advania’s service portfolio and focus on sustainable and secure digitalization.

Despite its change of ownership, atNorth will continue to play a role in Gompute’s future by hosting the platform in its high-density data centers.

“Driven by continued growing demand for atNorth’s services, we are sharpening our focus on high-density colocation and build-to-suit data centers,” commented Eyjólfur Magnús Kristinsson, CEO of atNorth. “Gompute has played a key role in our HPC journey, and its evolution with Advania marks an exciting next chapter.

“Advania's AI-ready sovereign cloud vision aligns seamlessly with the platform, and hosting it in our high-density data centers will enhance our strategic partnership and deliver a powerful solution for the market’s evolving needs.”

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Cloud Software Group has moved to further expand its portfolio with the acquisition of data management and protection provider, Arctera.

Arctera was founded in 2024 as the result of Veritas’ Enterprise Data Protection division merger with Cohesity, with the vendor providing data resilience, compliance, and protection capabilities through its InfoScale, Insight, and Backup Exec solutions.

Headquartered in Pleasanton, California, Arctera serves thousands of customers around the world, generating over $400 million in annual revenue and more than 40% adjusted EBITDA margins.

Terms of the deal were not revealed, but the acquisition is expected to close during Q4 2025, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

Cloud Software Group said it expects to fund the deal using cash on its balance sheet.

Cloud Software Group targets M&A boost

In an announcement confirming the deal, Cloud Software Group CEO Tom Krause described the acquisition as an “exciting milestone” for the company and its long-term M&A growth strategy.

“We have a strong track record of continuing to invest in our portfolio of leading software brands, as evidenced by our work to improve profitability and long-term sustainability of the Citrix and TIBCO businesses,” he explained.

“Looking ahead, we aim to acquire at-scale enterprise-focused software businesses that provide proven mission-critical capabilities and high value to public and private sector customers while also ensuring they’re a good fit to operate within our proven Cloud Software Group model.”

Krause said the group has been a long-time admirer of Arctera’s business, as well as the work that has gone into expanding the company.

“Arctera has grown into a leading provider of data and enterprise infrastructure software solutions for customers worldwide, and we are confident that Arctera’s portfolio of Data Resilience, Data Compliance, and Data Protection products will be a natural complementary addition to Cloud Software Group,” he continued.

“We look forward to expanding the services and products we provide for both sets of customers through this acquisition.”

Arctera to remain a standalone business

Upon completion of the acquisition, Arctera will operate as a standalone business unit within the Cloud Software Group portfolio.

“We are thrilled to enter this next chapter in Arctera’s evolution as we become a part of the Cloud Software Group team,” commented Lawrence Wong, Arctera CEO.

“Our mission has been to build on our pedigree of innovation across our three distinct product lines, each tailored to solve the most demanding data challenges for their customers.

“With Cloud Software Group’s global resources, industry leading portfolio and seasoned leadership team, Arctera will be even better positioned to continue helping customers manage one of their most valuable assets: data.”

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• Palo Alto Networks confirms CyberArk acquisition in major identity security push

Palo Alto Networks has announced plans to acquire identity security provider CyberArk in a move analysts say “rounds out” its solutions portfolio.

The deal, valued at roughly $25 billion, will enable Palo Alto Networks to move deeper into the identity security market and improve its product offering, the company said in a statement today.

CyberArk is a leading provider of identity software tools, offering a range of services spanning areas such as privileged access management (PAM), secure single sign-on (SSO), and multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Identity-based threats have been growing rapidly in recent years, according to research from eSentire, with threat actors ramping up efforts to target user accounts, logins, and identities.

While Palo Alto Networks already has a stake in identity security via its Cloud Identity Engine, bringing CyberArk’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) and PAM capabilities complement the firm’s existing portfolio, according to Geoff Cairns, principal analyst at Forrester.

“This acquisition elevates the consolidation trend that has characterized the IAM market in recent years to a new level, reshaping not only the IAM landscape but also the broader cybersecurity industry,” he said.

“Identity security is foundational to modern cybersecurity, and CyberArk’s areas of expertise in privileged identity management and machine identity security strongly complement Palo Alto Networks independent security platform approach.”

Indeed, Palo Alto specifically highlighted consolidation as a key factor behind the acquisition, noting the deal will help deliver a “combined platform” that integrates CyberArk’s identity security capabilities with its Strata and Cortex platforms.

Allie Mellen, principal analyst at Forrester, echoed Cairns’ comments on this front, noting that identity security is the “missing piece” of the puzzle for Palo Alto Networks.

Earlier this year, Palo Alto acquired Protect AI, which specializes in AI security, as part of a deal rumored to be around $500 million. This acquisition marked the fourth in the space of two years, having previously secured deals for Dig Security, Zycada Networks, and Talon Cyber Security in 2023 alone.

“Over the past several years, Palo Alto Networks has been on a mission to become a huge platform player in the security market,” Mellen said.

“Given its product portfolio as it stands today, identity security capabilities are a missing piece of that puzzle. This acquisition rounds out its approach, given its existing cloud, network, and endpoint security products.”

CyberArk has also been on an acquisitions spree in recent years in a bid to broaden its own identity security capabilities, first with a $1.54 billion deal to snap up Venafi.

In February this year, the company announced plans to acquire identity governance startup Zilla Security for $175 million.

Palo Alto Networks and the identity security “inflection point”

In a statement confirming the deal, Nikesh Arora, chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, said the company’s acquisition strategy centers around entering “categories at their inflection point”.

Arora noted that the advent of generative AI and increasing volumes of machine identities has added impetus to the company’s approach on this front. The company recently announced a partnership with Okta focused on AI threat detection and identity security, for example, highlighting its sharpened focus on this domain.

“The rise of AI and the explosion of machine identities have made it clear that the future of security must be built on the vision that every identity requires the right level of privilege controls, not the 'IAM fallacy',” he said.

“CyberArk is the definitive leader in Identity Security with durable, foundational technology that is essential for securing the AI era. Together, we will define the next chapter of cybersecurity."

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Fresh from its recent successful dealings with Microsoft, Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) is attempting to stop Broadcom's acquisition of VMWare.

The alliance of European cloud providers has filed an appeal with the European General Court over the European Commission's approval of the deal, calling for it to be annulled.

Along with around ten other competition authorities, including those in the UK, South Korea, Japan and China, the Commission gave final approval to the $69 billion acquisition in May.

But while it acknowledged that the takeover posed significant risks to competition it didn't, said CISPE, impose any conditions on Broadcom to limit its market dominance.

This, said CISPE in its complaint, is an error in law and amounts to a 'manifest failure' in the competitive assessment process.

"For the past two years, CISPE has consistently raised alarms with the European Commission - particularly with DG Competition - over Broadcom’s unfair software licensing practices," said CISPE.

"Despite numerous meetings and thorough responses to detailed requests for information, no substantive action was taken to support either European cloud service providers or their customers."

Since the deal was finalized, Broadcom has been terminating existing customer contracts – often with only a few weeks' notice – and imposing new ones. In many cases, CISPE has claimed, this has meant an increase in licensing costs of up to 15 times, with customers also trapped in unnecessarily long contracts.

CISPE added that Broadcom’s new licensing terms could exclude smaller cloud providers from purchasing and reselling VMware-based cloud services -important tools for delivering secure, flexible and European-based cloud solutions.

Under the new terms, the CSP Program is to become invite-only from November, with many small or medium-sized firms shut out.

“The dominance of VMware software in the virtualisation market means that unfair new licensing terms enforced by Broadcom affect almost every European organisation using cloud technology,” said Francisco Mingorance, secretary general of CISPE.

“Not just cloud service providers, but hospitals, universities, and municipal authorities are all now facing unaffordable bills and rigid long-term commitments that jeopardise the flexibility and affordability of their cloud infrastructure. The Commission was warned this would happen, yet it stood by. It must now reconsider its decision.”

No date has yet been set for a court hearing, however a Broadcom spokesperson told ITPro: "Broadcom strongly disagrees with these allegations. The European Commission, along with twelve other jurisdictions around the world, approved our acquisition of VMware following a thorough merger review process, and we will uphold the commitments made to the Commission at that time. We continue to bring our customers better choices and solutions to address their most complex technology challenges."

CISPE last week scored a victory over Microsoft in a similar dispute over its software licensing practices.

Its members will now be allowed to offer Microsoft software to customers on a pay-as-you-go basis, with stronger privacy for customers of European cloud providers.

This, it said, will bring the pricing for products including Windows Server and SQL Server more in line with those of Microsoft’s own cloud platform, Azure.

LevelBlue has announced plans to acquire cybersecurity firm Trustwave in a move the firm says will create the world’s largest managed security services provider (MSSP).

In a statement confirming the deal, LevelBlue said the acquisition will combine its expertise in strategic risk management and cybersecurity infrastructure with Trustwave’s Fusion Platform and cloud native MDR service.

This, the company noted, will give enterprises greater visibility and control over how security resources are provisioned, monitored, and managed across any environment.

"The acquisition of Trustwave represents a pivotal moment for LevelBlue and the cybersecurity industry,” said Robert McCullen, Chairman and CEO of LevelBlue.

“Trustwave’s extensive expertise in managed detection and response services, combined with its unparalleled threat intelligence from SpiderLabs and mission-critical FedRAMP and StateRAMP authorizations, perfectly aligns with our vision to deliver simplified and powerful cybersecurity protection to organizations."

The two companies are planning to launch a unified cybersecurity managed defense platform, supported by LevelBlue’s AI threat detection platform and SpiderLabs’ threat research and intelligence capabilities.

This will work across both public and hybrid cloud environments, as well as on-premises, the company said.

"At Trustwave, we have always believed that the best defense is a proactive, intelligence-driven approach — one that combines advanced technology, elite human expertise, and relentless innovation," said Trustwave CEO Eric Harmon.

"By joining LevelBlue, we are amplifying this vision. Together, we will deliver an even broader and deeper suite of managed security and detection and response services."

LevelBlue acquisition will bolster security investment

Following the acquisition, Harmon promised extra investment in new platforms and technologies, with an emphasis on developing additional purpose-built AI capabilities tools to enhance threat detection accuracy, speed, and response efficacy.

Merging the companies' capabilities, he said, would bring improvements in Managed Detection and Response (MDR), threat intelligence, and consulting and professional services.

The move here comes in response to growing customer demands for “more integrated, intelligent, and scalable solutions” to tackle emerging cyber threats, Harmon added.

"But this acquisition isn’t just about scale — it’s about combining the best minds, technologies, and research to set a new standard for managed security outcomes,” he said.

Life after AT&T is going well for LevelBlue

LevelBlue spun out from AT&T just a year ago, becoming one of the largest startups in the cybersecurity industry to date. Tens of thousands of customers switched from AT&T in the wake of the acquisition.

The deal comes just weeks after LevelBlue's acquisition of Aon's Cybersecurity and Intellectual Property (IP) Litigation consulting groups, adding deep cyber and IP litigation consulting to its repertoire.

Once both the Aon and Trustwave deals have closed, LevelBlue will have 30,000 customers globally, generating annual revenues of more than $1 billion.

“Two longtime leaders in MSS and MDR coming together signals market maturation and industry consolidation, but also a powerhouse opportunity,” said Christina Richmond, Principal Analyst at Richmond Advisory Group.

“Add in the recently announced acquisition of Aon’s Cybersecurity and Intellectual Property Litigation consulting groups, and the potential for a full-service global cybersecurity and risk management firm is apparent.”

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Snowflake has announced plans to acquire open source Postgres provider Crunchy Data in a move the firm says will accelerate secure agentic AI development.

The deal, announced at the Snowflake Summit in San Francisco this week, will bring Snowflake Postgres to the company’s flagship AI Data Cloud service.

In a statement confirming the acquisition, Snowflake said this will combine the “full power of Postgres” with marked security and governance capabilities.

“Our vision is to deliver the world’s most trusted and comprehensive data and AI platform to our customers,” said Vivek Raghunathan, SVP of Engineering at Snowflake.

“Today’s announcement of our proposed acquisition of Crunchy Data represents another reason why Snowflake is the ultimate destination for all enterprise data and AI needs,” he added.

What the Crunchy Data deal means for Snowflake customers

Raghunathan said the motivation behind the acquisition lies in the growing demand for enterprise-grade Postgres solutions, as well as compatibility with production applications.

With Snowflake Postgres bringing Crunchy Data’s “proven track record” in FedRAMP compliant environments to the company’s AI Data Cloud service, this will help improve developer productivity while bolstering security and compliance considerations.

“We built Crunchy Data with the vision to become a Postgres solution of choice for leading enterprise organisations,” said Paul Laurence, Co-Founder at Crunchy Data.

“Our deep-rooted commitment to stringent security and comprehensive compliance has made us the trusted Postgres partner for organizations across regulated industries, including federal agencies, Fortune 500 financial institutions and high-scale SaaS companies,” Laurence added.

“We’re excited to join forces with Snowflake to provide their customers who already rely on Postgres the ability to run mission-critical regulated workloads with increased confidence and security on the Snowflake platform.”

PostgreSQL remains one of the most popular databases used by developers today, with nearly half (49%) of all devs reporting they use the platform. Snowflake Postgres, meanwhile, aims to simplify how enterprises use the database to support the development of AI agents and applications.

“It leverages Crunchy Data’s technology, which has been engineered not just for quick experimentation, but for the entire lifecycle of building, deploying, and operating the most important enterprise workloads,” the company said in a statement.

“With Snowflake Postgres, customers and partners such as Blue Yonder and LandingAI, who currently leverage PostgreSQL to power their applications’ operational data, can ship faster, operate more efficiently and gain a competitive advantage in the rapidly evolving shift towards AI agents.”

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Snowflake has announced plans to acquire open source Postgres provider Crunchy Data in a move the firm says will accelerate secure agentic AI development.

The deal, announced at the Snowflake Summit in San Francisco this week, will bring Snowflake Postgres to the company’s flagship AI Data Cloud service.

In a statement confirming the acquisition, Snowflake said this will combine the “full power of Postgres” with marked security and governance capabilities.

“Our vision is to deliver the world’s most trusted and comprehensive data and AI platform to our customers,” said Vivek Raghunathan, SVP of Engineering at Snowflake.

“Today’s announcement of our proposed acquisition of Crunchy Data represents another reason why Snowflake is the ultimate destination for all enterprise data and AI needs,” he added.

What the Crunchy Data deal means for Snowflake customers

Raghunathan said the motivation behind the acquisition lies in the growing demand for enterprise-grade Postgres solutions, as well as compatibility with production applications.

With Snowflake Postgres bringing Crunchy Data’s “proven track record” in FedRAMP compliant environments to the company’s AI Data Cloud service, this will help improve developer productivity while bolstering security and compliance considerations.

“We built Crunchy Data with the vision to become a Postgres solution of choice for leading enterprise organisations,” said Paul Laurence, Co-Founder at Crunchy Data.

“Our deep-rooted commitment to stringent security and comprehensive compliance has made us the trusted Postgres partner for organizations across regulated industries, including federal agencies, Fortune 500 financial institutions and high-scale SaaS companies,” Laurence added.

“We’re excited to join forces with Snowflake to provide their customers who already rely on Postgres the ability to run mission-critical regulated workloads with increased confidence and security on the Snowflake platform.”

PostgreSQL remains one of the most popular databases used by developers today, with nearly half (49%) of all devs reporting they use the platform. Snowflake Postgres, meanwhile, aims to simplify how enterprises use the database to support the development of AI agents and applications.

“It leverages Crunchy Data’s technology, which has been engineered not just for quick experimentation, but for the entire lifecycle of building, deploying, and operating the most important enterprise workloads,” the company said in a statement.

“With Snowflake Postgres, customers and partners such as Blue Yonder and LandingAI, who currently leverage PostgreSQL to power their applications’ operational data, can ship faster, operate more efficiently and gain a competitive advantage in the rapidly evolving shift towards AI agents.”

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Endpoint management provider NinjaOne has completed its acquisition of Dropsuite in a deal valued at $270 million.

Founded in 2011, Dropsuite specializes in SaaS backup and data protection for critical workloads, covering cloud backup, archiving, and recovery. Geared towards MSPs, the cloud platform is designed to protect data, ensure business continuity, and simplify compliance.

NinjaOne said the acquisition will help customers minimize ransomware risks by unifying endpoint, server, and SaaS application backup capabilities.

In an announcement, Sal Sferlazza, NinjaOne’s CEO and co-founder, described the addition as “a major step forward” in the firm’s efforts to help customers improve productivity, protect data, and build resilience.

“The addition of Dropsuite not only expands the backup protection we offer, but it also brings a team of new Ninjas whose mindset perfectly aligns with NinjaOne’s values,” he explained.

“Dropsuite’s commitment to customer success and product excellence will help us accelerate growth and better serve our customers. I couldn’t be happier to welcome our new team members to NinjaOne.”

NinjaOne targets unified ransomware protection

The acquisition comes at a time when many organizations still possess fragmented backup strategies, tools, and teams due to large amounts of endpoints, cloud applications, remote devices, and SaaS platforms.

Phil Hochmuth, program vice president at research firm IDC’s Endpoint Management & Enterprise Mobility division, said this disjointed approach introduces unnecessary complexities in IT and security.

“Amid surging ransomware attacks, many organizations have a fragmented backup strategy with a patchwork of legacy endpoint tools, bolt-on SaaS protectors, and disconnected consoles,” he said.

“This approach introduces inefficiencies and blind spots and increases the risk of operational disruptions and intentional and unintentional data loss from human error, application issues, disgruntled employees, and cyber attacks.”

Dropsuite acquisition will boost customer safety

With Dropsuite’s integration into the NinjaOne portfolio, the firm can now offer a unified backup suite capable of providing secure automated backups across endpoints, servers, Microsoft 365, and Google Workspace, alongside real-time archiving.

By unifying these use cases into a single platform, NinjaOne said organizations of all sizes can now simplify their workloads whilst leveraging robust data protection, simplified backup workflows, as well as enhanced security and compliance.

“Dropsuite helps organizations protect their data with intuitive yet powerful cloud backup software,” commented Charif El-Ansari, CEO at Dropsuite.

“Together with NinjaOne, we’re even better suited to make our customers successful with one integrated console that automates endpoint and SaaS application backup. We will continue to solve our customers’ biggest challenges together.”

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Cybersecurity solutions provider Check Point has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire exposure asset specialist Veriti Cybersecurity.

Founded in 2021, Veriti has pioneered the preemptive exposure management (PEM) platform category, offering fully automated threat exposure and mitigation tools.

Powered by AI and featuring integration with more than 70 vendors, Veriti’s offering is designed to continuously identify, prioritize, and remediate risk in real-time across multi-vendor environments.

The company offers a range of tools, including automatic patching and collaborative threat intelligence.

With the company’s acquisition, Check Point said it is bolstering its ability to deliver complete risk lifecycle coverage at a time when AI has enabled threat actors to launch attacks at scale and enterprises are increasingly hyperconnected.

“The acquisition of Veriti marks a significant step toward realizing our hybrid mesh security vision,” explained Nadav Zafrir, CEO at Check Point Software Technologies.

“It strengthens the Infinity Platform’s open-garden approach, enabling seamless, multi-vendor remediation across the entire security stack. With Veriti, we’re advancing preemptive, prevention-first security – an imperative in today’s AI-driven threat landscape.”

Infinity integration

Post-acquisition, Veriti’s capabilities will be integrated into Check Point’s Infinity Platform as part of the firm’s threat exposure and risk management offering.

Users will be able to leverage automated, cross-vendor virtual patching for speedy, non-disruptive protection across third-party tools, alongside real-time threat intelligence enforcement for protection across firewalls, endpoints, and cloud platforms.

Additionally, the platform will enable seamless integration with an ecosystem of more than 70 vendors, stronger synergy with Wiz for cloud exposure insights, as well as safe and context-aware threat remediation.

Commenting on the acquisition, Veriti co-founder and CEO, Adi Ikan, said today’s security teams suffer from a “lack of action” while exposures “hide in the gaps between tools, teams, and timelines.”

“We founded Veriti to help organizations not just see risk, but remediate it safely, at scale, and most importantly - without disruption,” he explained.

“By joining Check Point, we’re accelerating that mission. Together, we’ll help organizations reduce their exposure faster through the security tools they already trust.”

The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of Q2 2025, subject to customary closing conditions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Salesforce has announced plans to acquire Informatica in a deal valued at $8 billion as the firm continues with its AI focus.

In a statement confirming the acquisition, Salesforce said the deal will enhance its data management capabilities and will complement its agentic AI service.

Salesforce launched its Agentforce service in September last year, which gives users access to a range of autonomous AI agents focused on various areas, including customer service, HR, and recruitment.

The firm has even touted the use of AI agents to support frontline trade workers in recent months. More than 1,000 deals have been struck with enterprises for the Agentforce service since it launched, according to Salesforce.

“The combination of Informatica’s rich data catalog, data integration, governance, quality and privacy, metadata management, and Master Data Management (MDM) services with the Salesforce platform will establish a unified architecture for agentic AI — enabling AI agents to operate safely, responsibly, and at scale across the modern enterprise,” the company said in a statement announcing the acquisition.

By integrating Informatica’s solutions, Salesforce aims to bolster data transparency and governance capabilities, as well as provide a broader pool of metadata used to train and inform AI agents.

Salesforce eyes unified agentic AI gains

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who has been highly vocal on the potential of the firm’s Agentforce service over the last eight months, said the deal will create the “most complete, agent-ready data platform in the industry”.

He added: “By uniting the power of Data Cloud, MuleSoft, and Tableau with Informatica’s industry-leading, advanced data management capabilities, we will enable autonomous agents to deliver smarter, safer, and more scalable outcomes for every company, and significantly strengthen our position in the $150 billion-plus enterprise data market.”

The acquisition is expected to close early in the next fiscal year, according to Salesforce, and the company expects the deal to boost operating margins from the second year.

Informatica is Salesforce’s largest acquisition since it purchased Slack in 2021 as part of a $28 billion deal. The company acquired Tableau Software two years prior in a deal valued at $15.3 billion.

Salesforce shelved talks with the company last year after negotiations over an acquisition fell through.

“Joining forces with Salesforce represents a significant leap forward in our journey to bring ​​data and AI to life by empowering businesses with the transformative power of their most critical asset — their data,” said Amit Walia, CEO of Informatica.

“We have a shared vision for how we can help organizations harness the full value of their data in the AI era.”

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Proofpoint has announced the acquisition of US-based tech firm Nuclei in a move the cybersecurity vendor said will bolster communications capture and archiving across workspace collaboration platforms.

Headquartered in Holmdel, New Jersey, Nuclei specializes in compliance archiving and AI-driven data-enrichment for modern workspace communications.

With the firm’s acquisition, Proofpoint said it is enhancing its digital communications governance (DCG) offering with “unmatched capabilities” for capturing, retaining, and analyzing communications across popular platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom, Webex, WhatsApp, and RingCentral Voice.

Post acquisition, Proofpoint will also continue to support seamless integration with a broad range of archive and data governance platforms to ensure its connectors offer reliable and compliant operability across diverse customer environments.

“This acquisition enables us to accelerate our mission to deliver the most advanced and comprehensive AI-powered digital communications compliance platform in the market today, and we are excited to welcome Nuclei’s talented team to Proofpoint,” commented Harry Labana, senior vice president and general manager of Proofpoint’s DCG business unit.

“By combining Proofpoint’s leading human-centric security platform with Nuclei’s pioneering technology, we can provide our customers with enhanced regulatory compliance while unlocking valuable insights from conversational data, which will be a game changer, particularly for highly regulated industries.”

Nuclei platform

With Nuclei, Proofpoint said organizations can leverage integration with more than 100 applications for automatic capture and archiving of messages, attachments, and metadata across collaboration tools.

Users can also unlock AI transformation with AI data enrichment, thanks to capabilities such as speech recognition in over 120 languages, real-time transcription, automatic translation, as well as video analysis.

Additionally, the platform offers seamless integration with major compliance archives such as Proofpoint, Smarsh, Global Relay, Arctera, and Microsoft Purview, while also providing scalability and security.

Commenting on the acquisition, Nuclei CEO Eric Franzen said Proofpoint’s size and reach will help expand Nuclei’s own reach and influence around the world.

“At Nuclei, our mission is to democratize access to the world’s most valuable data by transforming workplace communications into structured, compliant, and actionable information,” he said. “This vision has fueled our innovation from the start.

“Partnering with Proofpoint allows us to extend that impact by helping the world’s largest organizations boost productivity across hundreds of collaboration platforms while staying ahead of growing regulatory requirements.”

The move follows hot on the heels of Proofpoint’s acquisition of UK security firm Hornetsecurity earlier this month - a move the vendor said will bolster its Microsoft 365 protection and “significantly enhance” its human-centric security capabilities.

Financial terms of the Nuclei deal were not disclosed.

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Cybersecurity provider Proofpoint has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Hornetsecurity Group, subject to customary closing conditions.

Expected to close in the second half of 2025, Proofpoint said the move will “significantly enhance” its ability to provide human-centric security to small- and mid-sized businesses around the world, via managed service providers.

Headquartered in Hannover, Germany, Hornetsecurity is a pan-European provider of AI-powered Microsoft 365 security, data protection, compliance, and security awareness services. The company provides solutions to over 12,000 channel partners and MSPs, and more than 125,000 SMBs across Europe.

In an announcement, Proofpoint said that, together, the companies will create a “powerful new standard in human-centric security” through complimentary, purpose-built platforms fueled by shared threat intelligence.

“As attackers grow more sophisticated and people remain the primary target, organizations need security that protects them wherever they work—across email, cloud applications, and every digital channel,” said Sumit Dhawan, CEO of Proofpoint.

“With the addition of Hornetsecurity, we’re excited to extend our industry-leading, human-centric security platform to better serve the unique needs of MSPs and SMBs. We look forward to deepening our investment in the European markets as part of our global growth strategy.”

The acquisition adds a high-performing business to the Proofpoint portfolio, with Hornetsecurity posting over $160 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), and more than 20% year-over-year growth.

The firm’s strong performance is fueled by its flagship 365 Total Protection solution, a comprehensive cloud security offering for M365 that provides MSPs with a multi-tenant, unified platform to deliver integrated security services to customers.

Proofpoint said the Hornetsecurity team will continue to drive innovation across the Total Protection platform to deliver additional innovative solutions to partners and customers.

Upon closing, Proofpoint will leverage its global reach to make the platform available to MSPs and their customers worldwide, with Hornetsecurity to serve as a central hub for all MSP and SMB customers within the group.

Hornetsecurity CEO Daniel Hofmann will continue to lead the business, while the management team will also remain on board.

“With the breadth of human-centric risks only growing, joining Proofpoint is a natural next step in our journey to build the strongest global offering of M365 security services,” Hofmann commented.

“By coming together, we can better serve our partners and customers and extend that protection globally to help MSPs everywhere safeguard their customers’ people, data, and operations.”

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Cloud data and AI solutions provider Datatonic has moved to expand its range of global services with the acquisition of Syntio.

Founded in 2017, Zagreb-headquartered Syntio specializes in data engineering, providing services designed to help organizations modernize their data infrastructure and develop advanced data platforms.

For three years in a row, the firm was listed by the Financial Times as being one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe.

Datatonic said the acquisition will bolster its enterprise service offerings and global delivery capabilities with deep data engineering skills, including data ingestion, data transformation, and business intelligence.

The addition also enables Datatonic to tap into Syntio’s customer base, which covers telcos, central banks, and retailers across Europe. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"We are thrilled to welcome Syntio to the Datatonic family," commented Datatonic CEO, Scott Eivers, in an announcement.

"This acquisition is a key step in our strategy to expand our global reach and enhance our service capabilities. Syntio’s talented team and specialized expertise will be invaluable as we continue to deliver innovative data and AI solutions to our clients."

Datatonic looks to combine expertise

Headquartered in London, Datatonic provides cloud data and AI consultancy solutions and services designed to enhance decision-making, optimize operations, and drive customer experience improvements.

According to the company, the acquisition of Syntio marks the unification of two “highly complementary” businesses that share the same values and commitment to delivering results for clients.

By combining its own expertise across generative AI and AI platforms with Syntio’s technical specialization in data engineering, Datatonic said customers will now have access to the “broadest range of high-impact solutions and deep expertise.”

"Joining Datatonic at this stage in the evolution of AI and data engineering is an exciting opportunity for Syntio," said Davorin Cetto, CEO of Syntio.

"The scale of offerings, the geographic coverage, and our combined expertise mean our customers now have the best technology options as they navigate towards a cloud data and AI-centric future.”

Datatonic is backed by Perwyn, a European private equity investor that works to transform businesses through value-added engagement with management teams.

Mike Rothwell, investment manager at the firm, said the Syntio acquisition “will augment the business’ capabilities across generative AI, machine learning, and data analytics.”

“We will continue to support the growth of the business and its position as a market leading data and AI consultancy,” he added.

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ServiceNow has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire enterprise AI specialist Moveworks for $2.85 billion.

Expected to be finalized in the second half of 2025 subject to customary closing conditions, the move will see ServiceNow combine its agentic AI and automation capabilities with Moveworks’ front-end AI assistant and enterprise search technology.

The aim, the firm said, is to drive employee engagement through a powerful, universal AI assistant, alongside a more perceptive AI-based enterprise search capable of answering requests at speed, automating everyday tasks, as well as increasing overall productivity.

In an announcement, ServiceNow president Amit Zavery said the move marks “another giant leap forward” for the firm’s AI-powered business transformation capabilities.

“As agentic AI and enterprise‑grade search forever change how we work, ServiceNow moved early to empower employees through AI,” he explained.

“Moveworks’ talented team and elegant AI‑first experience, combined with ServiceNow’s powerful AI‑driven workflow automation, will supercharge enterprise‑wide AI adoption and deliver game‑changing outcomes for employees and their customers.”

ServiceNow targets deeper AI integration

According to ServiceNow, its new AI solution is the fastest-growing product introduction in its history, with the firm now serving nearly 1,000 AI customers.

As of December 31, the company also surpassed $200 million in annual contract revenue for its Pro Plus AI offering.

With a team of more than 500 AI experts, Moveworks has also found success with adoption of its AI assistant, including at organizations such as Hearst, Instacart, Palo Alto Networks, Siemens, Toyota, and Unilever.

The platform has grown to almost 5 million employee users over the last 18 months, according to the firm, with 90% of its customers deploying the offering to all of their employees.

As most current Moveworks customer deployments are already using ServiceNow as a key source of enterprise AI, data, and workflows, in addition to an existing mutual customer base of around 250 customers, ServiceNow said it expects “seamless integration” between the offerings.

Unified offering

The combined solution aims to offer a unified, end-to-end search and self-service experience for employee requestors across every workflow, all from a single entry point.

ServiceNow said its agent orchestration capabilities will connect, analyze and manage AI agents, ensuring agents ‘work in harmony’ across tasks, systems, and departments.

Customers will be able to leverage Moveworks’ capabilities for front-end employee automations across sales, CRM, finance, and HR - including alerts and notifications, customer insights, automation of answers to employees’ payroll questions, as well as simplification of the recruitment process.

"Moveworks hides the complexity employees face at work by giving them an intuitive, engaging starting place to search and drive action across any enterprise system,” commented Bhavin Shah, co-founder and CEO at Moveworks.

“Becoming part of ServiceNow presents an incredible opportunity to accelerate our innovation and deliver on our promise through their AI agent‑fueled platform to redefine the user experience for employees and customer service teams.”

ServiceNow added that the acquisition will help the business capitalize on the “massive market opportunity” ahead and revealed it plans to further integrate solutions - such as CRM and customer service tailored to customer personas - to help deliver a “cohesive sell, fulfil, and service experience” through the platform.

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