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The Canadian technology giant BlackBerry Ltd on Friday made an announcement of one of it’s biggest acquisition made by the company till to date.
In a statement issued by BlackBerry Ltd, the company said: “It is set to acquire Cylance an AI and cybersecurity company in $1.4 bn all in cash deal.”
The statement added, “the deal is pending for regulatory approvals and other customary closing condition and it is expected to close before the end of the company’s current fiscal year (February 2019).”
Earlier this week, Business Insider reported that “Cylance, was planning to an IPO valuing the company at more than $3 billion before BlackBerry entered in the deal.”
BlackBerry CEO, John Chen, in its statement said: “Cylance’s leadership in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity will immediately complement our entire portfolio, UEM, and QNX in particular.”
He added “We are very excited to onboard their team and leverage our newly combined expertise. We believe adding Cylance’s capabilities to our trusted advantages in privacy, secure mobility, and embedded systems will make BlackBerry Spark indispensable to realizing the Enterprise of Things.”
“Our highly skilled cybersecurity workforce and market leadership in next-generation endpoint solutions will be a perfect fit within BlackBerry where our customers, teams, and technologies will gain immediate benefits from BlackBerry’s global reach,” said Stuart McClure, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Cylance. “We are eager to leverage BlackBerry’s mobility and security strengths to adapt our advanced AI technology to deliver a single platform.”
Cylance was founded in 2015 by former McAfee/Intel duo Stuart McClure (CEO) and Ryan Permeh (chief scientist) and it differentiates itself by using artificial intelligence, machine learning and more to proactively analyze and detect threats for its customers, which it said include Fortune 100 organizations and governments.
Till to date, the company has raised nearly $300 million from investors that include Blackstone, DFJ, Khosla Ventures, Dell Technologies, and KKR and have 3,500 active enterprise customers, including more than 20% of the Fortune 500.