BlackBerry is reportedly in talks to acquire cybersecurity company Cylance for $1.5 billion, according to sources with Business Insider. This deal could be announced next week, but nothing is official yet so it could potentially fall through. And while sources believe the deal could be as high as $1.5 billion, the exact financial terms could not be learned.
Based out of Irvine, California, Cylance is known for developing artificial intelligence products in order to protect companies from cyber attacks and hackers. Cylance’s market growth is largely attributed to the company’s development of the first machine learning powered predictive endpoint security solution.
And Cylance’s ‘predictive advantage’ is able to protect endpoints from threats which may not exist for years. Ever since the company launched, its machine learning based approach has prevented attacks on average 25 months before the attack was launched and first discovered.
Cylance prevented over tens of millions of cyber attacks worldwide. These attacks prevented both known and unknown threats such as ransomware, memory attacks, fileless attacks, script-based attacks, and living off the land attacks.
According to Pitchbook, Cylance raised about $327 million in funding since launching. And the company was recently reportedly considering filing for an initial public offering.
In 2018, Cylance generated more than $130 million in revenue. This is 90% year-over-year growth. And the company has 4,000 customers. These numbers were revealed in a press release from June 2018 when the company raised $120 million in funding led by funds managed by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and several other investors.
At one point, BlackBerry was one of the largest smartphone makers in the world. But then the company pivoted with more of a focus on enterprise software and services.
