Zimperium to be acquired by investment firm for US$525mn
Zimperium, a provider of security for mobile devices and apps, today announced an agreement for former treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin’s, investment firm Liberty Strategic Capital to acquire a controlling stake in the company for US$525mn.
Mnuchin will become chair of the board of directors at Zimperium in connection with the deal. The investment will enable Zimperium to continue accelerating its growth and SoftBank Corp., which has been an investor in Zimperium since 2017, will continue as a minority investor.
“Mobile devices and applications are an integral part of daily life for people around the world. They contain or serve as a gateway to the most sensitive personal and organisational data, making them an extremely valuable target for attackers,” said Secretary Mnuchin.
“It’s clear that mobile is the new front line for cybersecurity. We all need to increase our focus on the protection of mobile devices and applications. Liberty Strategic Capital is investing in Zimperium because they’ve shown that they can lead the way in this multibillion-dollar market. Employees are using their own devices, driving enterprises to increasingly recognise the need for top-of-the-line cybersecurity designed for the mobile environment. As the use of mobile devices and the cyber threats against them proliferate, we believe Zimperium has positioned itself as the leader in securing mobile endpoints and applications.”
Strengthening mobile security as threats grow
With the number of mobile devices worldwide expected to reach 18.2bn by 2025, the cybersecurity threat to people, organisations, and governments across the globe will continue to expand too.
Zimperium’s 2022 Global Mobile Threat Report recently revealed that nearly one in four mobile endpoints encountered malicious applications last year. Attack vectors for compromising mobile devices expanded as well, with Zimperium’s research showing that 75% of phishing sites discovered last year specifically targeted mobile devices.
“There’s no question that the world is going mobile. And as that happens, modern operating systems like Android and iOS are playing a more prominent role powering the devices people use in their personal and professional lives. But what many people don’t realise is that protecting these devices is much different from protecting traditional endpoints and requires a new approach,” said Shridhar Mittal, CEO of Zimperium.
“We’ve helped leading public and private organisations across the globe strengthen mobile security, and as we enter a high growth phase to help even more organisations, Secretary Mnuchin and the team at Liberty Strategic Capital will be a tremendous asset to guide and propel our company forward.”
Providing a solution to protect mobile apps
Founded in 2010, Zimperium offers real-time, on-device protection against both known and unknown threats.
With machine learning-based protection and a single platform that secures everything from applications to endpoints, Zimperium's solution provides on-device mobile threat defence to protect growing and evolving mobile environments.
Its solutions include zIPS which run locally on any mobile device and detects cyberattacks without a connection to the cloud and its ‘first-of-its-kind’ Mobile Application Protection Suite (MAPS), a comprehensive solution that helps organisations protect their mobile apps throughout their entire life cycle.
“Over the past 6 years, Zimperium has experienced transformative growth, providing innovative mobile threat defence solutions at a time where cybersecurity, specifically mobile security, is a must-have. We want to thank Shridhar and his team for their unrelenting hard work and commitment during our partnership,” said Ashutosh Somani, Managing Director, Warburg Pincus.
