Governance & Risk Management , IT Risk Management , Managed Detection & Response (MDR)

IronNet Goes Public by Merging With LGL Systems

The cybersecurity firm IronNet, founded and led by retired Army Gen. Keith Alexander, has gone public without an IPO by merging with LGL Systems Acquisitions Corp., a "blank check" shell company formed to handle such mergers.

See Also: Cyber Insurance Assessment Readiness Checklist

LGL's board on Thursday approved the merger with IronNet, creating a firm with a market cap Tuesday of $1.67 billion. The newly created company, which is using the name IronNet, is trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol IRNT.

IronNet Goes Public

IronNet's transaction with LGL resulted in gross proceeds of about $136.7 million to IronNet. All IronNet shareholders have rolled 100% of their equity holdings into the new public company, the company says.

Alexander, a retired U.S Army general* who led the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, says the deal will allow IronNet to scale its business operation.

"As a public company, we intend to apply our increased financial resources to accelerate product innovation for our customers and expand our portfolio of offerings," he says.

Collective Defense is IronNet's cybersecurity platform centered on the company's IronDome and IronDefense products. It facilitates collaboration to detect threats, share intelligence and stop threats in real time, the company says.

Check Point Makes a Buy

In other merger and acquisition news, Check Point has announced plans to acquire the New York-based email security firm Avanan.

Check Point, which did not reveal financial terms of the deal, says it expects to close the acquisition soon.

Incorporating Avanan's technology into Check Point's Infinity architecture will create a unified solution to help protect remote workforces, Check Point says.

Dr. Dorit Dor, Check Point's chief product officer, says the company has been using Avanan's technology for the last three years.

"Extended detection and response, or XDR, is the future of security," says Frank Dickson, program vice president of security and trust at IDC. "The concept is rather simple. Maximize the amount of context that you can ingest and apply analytics to illuminate potential maliciousness. Email security is a critical input and control point to XDR as email is the attack vector of choice in most cases."

Check Point says Avanan's staff of about 100 will be absorbed into Check Point's email security team, and Avanan's management will now report to Check Point's executive team.

Recently Announced Deals

In another major recent deal, antivirus and identity protection firm NortonLifeLock has entered into an agreement to acquire its rival, Avast, for $8.1 billion to $8.6 billion, after announcing in July that a deal was in the works.

Earlier this month, Sophos acquired Bellevue, Washington-based DevSecOps security firm Refactr; Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory purchased aeCyberSolutions from Greenville, South Carolina-based Applied Engineering Solutions; and Cerberus Sentinel closed a deal to acquire Cranbury, New Jersey-based managed security services provider VelocIT.

*Correction Dec. 17, 2022 3:56 UTC: Corrects the military service that former Army Gen. Keith Alexander served with. It was the Army, not the Air Force.