In recent quarters, cybersecurity has seen venture funding pick up. Now perhaps it’ll also lead an upswing in M&A deal-making.

Credit card giant Mastercard has agreed to buy threat intelligence company Recorded Future from Insight Partners for $2.65 billion. The deal represents a nice return for the private equity firm, which bought the startup in 2019 for $780 million.

The deal could be the first of many by large financial services companies looking to add threat detection and fraud-related cybersecurity features with the rise of new technologies like AI upping the risk of cyber threats.

Deal-making

While Insight bought Recorded Future in 2019, before that it had received several rounds of venture funding from the likes of IA Ventures, MassMutual Ventures and Google Ventures, per Crunchbase.

The deal is one of the largest in cyber this year, and represents the largest for any private, VC-backed (or at least at one-time VC-backed) cyber startup this year — topping CyberArk Software’s purchase of machine identity company Venafi for $1.5 billion in May.

So far this year there have been 64 M&A deals for VC-backed cybersecurity startups, well ahead of last year’s pace which saw a total of only 71 deals completed for startups, per Crunchbase data.

The current pace, however, is just shy of 2022, which saw 96 deals consummated.

Perhaps the Mastercard deal will recharge the deal-making industry.

Related Crunchbase Pro list:

• Global Venture-Backed Cybersecurity Acquisitions

Related reading

• Deal-Making Involving VC-Backed Startups Picks Up Slightly, But Still Slow
• Cybersecurity Funding Jumps 144% In Q2
• CyberArk Buys Thoma Bravo-Backed Venafi For $1.5B

Illustration: Dom Guzman