Armis Raises $300M On $3.4B Valuation To Fuel Acquisitions

‘Given our experience in the cybersecurity market, we also plan to assist Armis in quickly extending its asset security leadership through strategic acquisitions,’ says One Equity Partners’ Andrew Dunn.

Armis has closed a $300 million funding round to accelerate strategic platform development, fund global go-to-market initiatives and support future acquisitions.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based IoT security startup tapped One Equity Partners (OEP) to lead the round, and said the alignment of OEP’s portfolio with Armis’ capabilities in health care, industrial OT and technology will drive significant investments in customer acquisition and expansion. Semiconductor provider Allegro MicroSystems will be the first OEP portfolio company to deploy Armis throughout its networks.

“One Equity Partners is the exact type of investor we need at this juncture,” said Armis CEO Yevgeny Dibrov. “They deeply understand our sector and their acquisition expertise will help support us in achieving our expansion goals and objectives. We look forward to OEP joining our board and working with our investor group to continue to scale and to acquire a number of strategically important assets.”

[Related: Armis Snags Recorded Future’s Tim Mackie As Channel Chief]

Armis was founded in 2015, employs 496 people and has raised $537 million in six rounds of outside funding, according to LinkedIn and Crunchbase. The company was acquired by private equity giant Insight Partners in February 2020 for $1.1 billion, and then a year later closed a $125 million funding round from Brookfield Technology Partners at a market cap of $2 billion.

Monday’s funding round raises Armis’ valuation by an additional 70 percent to $3.4 billion. Armis has increased its revenue by 8,826 percent over the past three years and was recently ranked as the 25th fastest-growing technology company in North America in the 2021 Deloitte Technology Fast 500. The company hasn’t made any acquisitions in the seven years since it was established, according to Crunchbase.

“OEP and Armis see great value in quickly deploying the industry-leading security capabilities of Armis across global companies within the OEP portfolio,” OEP Managing Director Andrew Dunn said in a statement. “Given our experience in the cybersecurity market, we also plan to assist Armis in quickly extending its asset security leadership through strategic acquisitions.”

Insight Partners will remain the majority owner of Armis, while OEP will join the board of directors and lead acquisition initiatives. Armis itself will continue to operate independently and be managed by co-founders Dibrov and Chief Technology Officer Nadir Izrael as well as other members of the executive team.

“Armis continues its expansion into health care, federal, SLED and OT sectors in addition to our traditional IoT, IT, medical, and enterprise services and capabilities,” Izrael said in a statement. “The investment by One Equity Partners will fuel platform development, regional expansion and an enhanced go-to-market team.”

Armis said its platform spans multiple verticals and can cater to the convergence of IT and OT by securing OT, Industrial Control System (ICS), IT, IoT, Industrial IoT (IIoT) and Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) across multiple industries and sectors. The company said its real-time threat detection uses the world’s largest device knowledge base, tracking more than 1 billion devices and growing.

“Armis is the industry leader when it comes to asset visibility and security,” OEP Managing Director Ori Birnboim said in a statement. “We see a growing need for enterprises in a unified offering, and we are excited to work together with our partners to further accelerate the growth trajectory of the company and safeguard assets around the world.”

Armis in April hired Tim Mackie, a Recorded Future, SentinelOne and Cylance channel veteran, as vice president of global channels to grow international sales and repackage Armis’ training curriculum. Armis tasked Mackie with strengthening its presence outside North America and modifying the company’s partner certification program to create a more tiered approach based on engagement level.

Armis said it works with hundreds of technology and channel partners around the world including CrowdStrike, IBM, Fortified Health, PwC, Check Point Software Technologies, Accenture, Gigamon, Optiv, Capgemini, mCloud, Deloitte and Cyvatar. Between 70 percent and 80 percent of Armis’ sales went through the channel as of April, and Mackie said he’d like to see Armis conducting at least 95 percent of its business via partners.

“I’m honored to be here,” Mackie told CRN in April. “It’s a terrific company and a terrific organization. I’m at the right place at the right time.”