Microsoft Acquires Cybersecurity Startup RiskIQ as Cyber Threats Mount

Microsoft on Monday announced that it’s buying a San Francisco-based cybersecurity startup RiskIQ that provides threat intelligence and cloud-based software as a service for organizations to help companies better protect themselves as ransomware and other cyber-attacks become increasingly disruptive. Microsoft said the acquisition will help its customers address the unique risks created by remote work and relying on cloud computing amid “the increasing sophistication and frequency of cyberattacks.”

RiskIQ’s software allows organizations to monitor their entire networks — including operations running on various cloud providers — and its threat intelligence research helps businesses understand and mitigate potential risks. “We couldn’t be more excited to join forces to enable the global community to defend against the rising tide of cyberattacks,” RiskIQ Founder and CEO Elias Manousos said in a blog post Monday.

RiskIQ was founded in 2009 and has raised a total of $83 million over four rounds of funding. Elias Manousos, who co-founded RiskIQ and serves as its chief executive, said he was “thrilled” at the acquisition. Microsoft has also had its own cybersecurity challenges this year: Chinese-linked group Hafnium breached the company’s Exchange email service in March, potentially giving the group access to data from tens of thousands of organizations, including state and local governments, academic institutions, infectious disease researchers and businesses.

Microsoft declined to disclose the financial terms of the acquisition but Bloomberg on Sunday reported that Microsoft paid more than $500 million in cash to buy RiskIQ. Prior to the acquisition, RiskIQ had raised more than $80 million from investors. Most recently, it raised a $15 million Series D round announced last June aimed at helping integrate the company’s software into critical infrastructure, including to protect against nation-state adversaries. At the time, RiskIQ said it served 30% of the Fortune 500 and 6,000 organizations globally.

The announcement comes at a time when cybersecurity is top of mind for many business leaders, following a string of recent ransomware attacks that temporarily took out a major fuel pipeline, meat supplier, and IT vendor, among others. The acquisition is one of many Microsoft has made recently in the cybersecurity space. The software giant last year bought Israeli security startup CyberX in a bid to boost its Azure IoT business, and just last month it acquired Internet of Things security firm ReFirm Labs.