‘LookingGlass is joining the Fox Den’: ZeroFox completes $26M cyber acquisition

A leader in digital risk protection announced its acquisition of a global cybersecurity leader in a Monday tweet featuring a straightforward blue, red, and white graphic that reads: “LookingGlass is joining the Fox Den.”

ZeroFox has acquired external attack surface intelligence company, @LG_Cyber ! Learn more: https://t.co/p8DIkO6kbP #EASM #threatintelligence #cybersecurity pic.twitter.com/BFoGEELopt

— ZeroFox (@ZeroFox) April 24, 2023

Just about eight months after the Baltimore-based ZeroFox went public on the Nasdaq with a valuation of over $1 billion, the cloud-based security and analytics product suite provider has announced its acquisition of LookingGlass Cyber Solutions in a deal comprising 9.4 million shares of stock, convertible debt and cash.

LookingGlass is a cybersecurity-focused company from Reston, Virginia that was founded in Baltimore and itself acquired several properties — including Goldman Sachs’ in-house cybersecurity platform — during the 2010s. LookingGlass CEO Bryan Ware, a former assistant director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the federal Department of Homeland Security, will join ZeroFox’s executive team as part of the transaction. 

“We are thrilled to join forces with ZeroFox and look forward to the opportunities this will bring to our customers and employees,” Ware said in an emailed statement. “Our shared values and combined vision will allow us to deliver even more value to the market and achieve greater success together.”

ZeroFox CEO James Foster told Technical.ly the acquisition grows the company’s own cybersecurity capabilities, as well.  The transaction brings all LookingGlass employees, products and customers into ZeroFox’s portfolio. 

“The acquisition of LookingGlass bolsters ZeroFox’s strategy of providing customers with a single end-to-end platform for protecting their organization from increasingly external cyber threats,” Foster said in a separate email to Technical.ly, adding: “Integrating LookingGlass’s industry-leading attack surface and threat intelligence capabilities into the ZeroFox External Cybersecurity Platform will enable our customers to build a robust security posture by providing world-class visibility into the external attack surface assets and vulnerabilities, including improved actionable intelligence to disrupt emergent threats.”

Throughout the process, ZeroFox received advice from Stifel Financial Corp., a diversified global wealth management and investment banking company. The acquisition was successfully completed on Monday, and ZeroFox disclosed additional information during its prior Q1 FY24 earnings call.

A 1999 article in the Harvard Business Review noted that shareholders of acquiring companies fare worse in stock transactions over time than in cash transactions. Despite this longstanding belief among some leading economists, Foster has faith in the acquisition model, which ZeroFox used to grow earlier on.

“Acquisitions have long been a part of ZeroFox’s innovation strategy,” Foster said. “We consider acquisitions strategically important to accelerate our position as a global cybersecurity innovator and improve service delivery to the organizations that rely on us for protection against external cyber threats.”