Rapid7 has purchased early-stage security vendor Kubernetes Alcide to help deploy applications quickly while at the same time protecting cloud environments from malicious attacks.
The Boston-based cybersecurity company said Alcide’s cloud workload protection platform offers comprehensive real-time visibility and management, vessel runtime and network monitoring. Tel Aviv, an Israeli-based technology company, can also detect, monitor and analyze known and unknown security threats, according to Rapid7.
“We are delighted to welcome Alcide to Rapid7,” said Rapid7 Chairman and CEO Corey Thomas in a statement. “The technical talent within Israel’s cybersecurity ecosystem is unparalleled, and we look forward to working with the Alcide team to deliver complete cloud security to organizations that drive growth and innovation- business normalization. ”
[Related: Rapid7 To Buy Cloud Security Startup DivvyCloud For $145M]
The $ 50 million build of Alcide has already closed and is not expected to have a significant impact on Rapid7’s financial results for the calendar year 2021. Rapid7 stock is up $ 2.30 (2.65 percent) to $ 89.12 per share in trading shortly after the market opened Monday morning.
Alcide was founded in 2016, employs 34 people and has raised $ 12.3 million in four rounds of external funding, according to LinkedIn and Crunchbase. The company recently closed a $ 7 million Series A series in November 2018 led by venture capital fund CE Ventures.
“Today marks the start of an exciting new journey for Alcide,” Alcide CEO Amir Ofek said in a statement. “We are delighted to join Rapid7 not only because of our shared commitment to provide customers with innovative and affordable cloud security solutions, but this also gives us the opportunity to excel. Bringing our market-leading Kubernetes security platform to a wider set of customers. ”
Combining Alcide’s cloud workload protection platform with Rapid7 cloud security management and cloud infrastructure management offerings will allow customers to better manage risk and compliance across their cloud environment all, according to Brian Johnson, Rapid7’s senior vice president of cloud security.
“Kubernetes is fast becoming the preferred platform for automating, scaling and managing locked applications,” Johnson said in a statement. “To take advantage of the speed and ingenuity that Kubernetes can unleash for an organization, security must be tightly integrated without compromising. ”
There has been a shift in opinion in the cloud security market, Johnson said, with cloud security teams not seen as a cost center or an operational barrier. Instead, Johnson said these teams have earned their seat at the table as a vital investment necessary to move business forward.
“With Alcide, we can enable organizations to continually protect and safeguard the growing use of Kubernetes while at the same time giving developers the freedom to develop and deliver applications to fast, ”Johnson said.
Alcide decided two and a half years ago to focus on Kubernetes-only security and the move has paid off, with the proportion of Cloud Native Computing Foundation survey respondents on Kubernetes in production going up from 58 percent two years ago to 83 percent today, Ofek said. Companies like Snowflake and Grubhub rely on Alcide to secure their Kubernetes infrastructure, he said.
Despite COVID-19, Ofek said Alcide has grown rapidly and significantly upgraded its platform, delivering 20 major releases. The company also launched its first open source tool for early scanning of Kubernetes policy arrangements to identify any security gaps, according to Ofek. Alcide met Rapid7 at KubeCon San Diego a little over a year ago, and Ofek said there is a great culture and visionary alignment between the teams.
“By joining Rapid7, we will be able to bring a much stronger and more competitive offer to the market, accelerate our innovation, and gain a much larger scale globally than we could. achieved as a starting point, ”Ofek said in a blog post. “As part of Rapid7, we can share our SaaS and Kubernetes expertise and build on its leadership in the CSPM space.”
Alcide’s contract comes just over nine months after it bought Rapid7 DivvyCloud for $ 145 million to help customers protect cloud and shipping environments from misunderstandings, policy violations, external threats and internal, and identity management and accessibility challenges. The DivvyCloud offering combines deep visibility with automated blockchain and real-time risk management, according to Rapid7.