Tenable acquires industrial cybersecurity company for $78M

Columbia-based Tenable is planning to expand its cybersecurity offerings for operational technology with the acquisition of New York-based Indegy.

The all-cash deal is worth $78 million, and was completed Monday.

Founded in 2014, Indegy’s technology is designed to secure the operational technology (OT) that controls industrial equipment and devices. It’s a space where Tenable was already offering early solutions, as companies are facing potential risk of attacks and breaches, Tenable CEO Amit Yoran said on a conference call to discuss the deal on Monday.

The goal is to equip CISOs and other leaders to make “business-level” decisions about OT security, he said.

“The combination of Tenable and Indegy brings together two pioneers of IT vulnerability management and industrial cybersecurity to deliver the industry’s first unified, risk-based view of IT and OT security,” Yoran said in a statement.

Indegy’s roughly 60 employees will join Tenable. This includes CEO Barak Perelman, who will join in a vice president role. The company was mostly focused on developing the technology, and the team will bring expertise in OT security. Indegy had been ramping up go-to-market efforts, and can now draw on Tenable’s sales and marketing operations that have garnered 27,000 customers for its products overall.

The acquisition will enable Tenable to offer an expanded product for OT security, as it will integrate Indegy’s technology into its offerings next year. It will add features like notifications that alert customers when a device could be at risk, and the team will bring enhanced understanding of how components from multiple vendors work together and be secured.

The market for this particular category of cybersecurity is still in the early stages of development, but Tenable sees promise.

“In short, our initial success gives us confidence to accelerate investment in an area that was already contemplated in our roadmap,” Tenable CFO Steve Vintz said.

In a local startup community that has plenty of companies building toward an eventual exit, Tenable represents one of the larger companies that is doing the acquiring. It previously acquired San Francisco-based FlawCheck in 2016, which was two years before making its debut in the public markets in 2018. Even as its position means it looks beyond for business opportunities, the company is growing at home with a new headquarters in Columbia.