ZeroFOX acquires threat intelligence brand Cyveillance, grows to 400+ employees

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. In Baltimore, where cybersecurity has a significant presence in the local economy, it’s also bringing some M&A news.

ZeroFOX said Tuesday that it acquired open source threat intelligence business Cyveillance in a deal that will add a Reston, Virginia, presence for the Federal Hill-based cybersecurity firm.

ZeroFOX acquired the business for an undisclosed amount from LookingGlass Cyber Solutions, a Reston-based cybersecurity company with Baltimore roots. LookingGlass had acquired Cyveillance from defense tech company QinetiQ in 2015, and in May, relaunched the Cyveillance brand.

Founded in 1997, Cyveillance specializes in threat intelligence, which is knowledge about potential attackers that can be used to inform decisions about protection. The firm tracks this nefarious activity both with a large data repository and tools to monitor and analyze data sources, as well as human analysts. It works with businesses in financial services and energy, plus public sector organizations.

“It was clear that we needed to bring these two organizations together to achieve scale overnight to benefit our customers,” said Gilman Louie, cofounder of San Francisco-based venture firm Alsop Louie, in a statement. Louie became executive chairman of LookingGlass Cyber Solutions as the company closed a new investment round in May, and will now join the ZeroFOX board of directors.

Leaders said combining these threat intelligence-focused capabilities will expand ZeroFOX’s service offerings. ZeroFOX’s AI-powered platform is designed to safeguard brands across social media, mobile applications and websites. It’s a focus area it calls digital risk protection, and CEO James C. Foster said joining with Cyveillance “fulfills our strategic vision of accelerating our position as the definitive worldwide leader” in the space.

“ZeroFOX was attracted to Cyveillance for its access to nearly 150 world-class threat intelligence analysts, amazing blue-chip quality customers, two decades of tradecraft experience, and the industry’s oldest and most comprehensive threat-intelligence database,” said Sam Small, ZeroFOX’s chief security officer. “No other organization in the world can claim the breadth or sophistication of technology, people, historical tradecraft, and datasets that ZeroFOX and Cyveillance bring together. We believe this squarely positions us ahead of all market competitors.”

With the nearly 150 employees at Cyveillance, the combined companies now employ more than 400 people.

ZeroFOX will also add an office in Reston alongside its Baltimore HQ to form a “Cybersecurity Center of Excellence” in the D.C. area that includes cybersecurity operations center and executive briefing facility.

Starting out of Betamore in 2013, ZeroFOX is now among the city’s growth companies with an HQ in the former Pabst Castle and offices in the U.K., Chile and India. In February, ZeroFOX raised $74 million in an investment round led by Intel Capital.