Microsoft to acquire Aorato for $200m - report

Microsoft
Microsoft

Microsoft is set to announce acquisition of the Herzliya-based cyber security company, the "Wall Street Journal" reports.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) has agreed to buy Israeli cyber security start-up Aorato Ltd. for around $200 million, two people familiar with the matter told the "Wall Street Journal." The deal was finalized over the past 24 hours and Microsoft is expected to make an announcement later Thursday. "Globes" reported talks between the two companies in July.

Aorato raised $10 million in January from Accel Partners Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors and Glilot Capital Partners, and private investors Mickey Boodaei, a co-founder of Imperva Inc. and Trusteer. Last year Boodaei earned $151 million from the sale of Trusteer to IBM.

Aorato was founded in 2012 by CEO Idan Plotnik, VP R&D Michael Dolinsky, and VP professional services Ohad Plotnik. The company is based in Herzliya and has 10 employees and has raised $11 million to date.

All the founders served in the IDF cyber security unit, and have a decade of experience in the field. The company says that its product is "the first context-aware, behavior-based Directory Services Application Firewall (DAF). The company's solution profiles, then not only learns, but also predicts entities' behaviors enabling context aware real-time decision making."

The Plotnik brothers previously founded Foreity which was acquired by Aman Group in 2012.

Recent acquisitions in Israel by Microsoft include video search company VideoSurf in 2011 and 3DV ventures and gesture recognition company 3DV Systems in 2009.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 13, 2014

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2014

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