Financial services giant Mastercard (NYSE: MA) on Thursday announced plans to shell out $2.6 billion to acquire Recorded Future in a deal that adds threat intelligence and cybersecurity technologies to its corporate portfolio.

Mastercard positioned the transaction as an expansion of its cybersecurity services and said it would bolster the insights and intelligence used to secure its financial services ecosystem.

Recorded Future, based in Massachusetts, was previously acquired by private equity firm Insight Partners for $780 million in 2019. It is considered the world’s largest threat intelligence company, with customers in 75 countries, including the governments of 45 nations.

Recorded Future chief executive Chris Ahlberg said the company will remain an independent and open intelligence platform, operating as a separate subsidiary of Mastercard.

“We will continue on this mission,” Ahlberg wrote on X. “Same company, new owner, massive scale. Recorded Future will continue to generate intelligence at global scale, using the most advanced AI methods to turn it into gold, allowing our analysts and customers to produce the most exquisite analysis.”

Mastercard and Recorded Future already collaborate on an AI-supported service that alerts financial institutions when a card is likely to have been compromised. Since its launch earlier this year, Mastercard said the service has doubled the rate in which compromised cards are identified, as compared to the same time period last year.

When the acquisition closes, expected in the first quarter of 2025, Mastercard expects to double down on the use of artificial intelligence to identify and prevent fraud on its platforms.

“Both Mastercard and Recorded Future use AI to analyze billions of data points to identify potential threats, helping to protect people and businesses. Bringing these teams, technology and expertise together will enable the development of even more robust practices and drive greater synergies in cybersecurity and intelligence, reinforcing the Mastercard brand as a trust mark,” the companies said in a statement.

Mastercard has made several cybersecurity-focused acquisitions over the years. In 2021, it acquired cryptocurrency intelligence and blockchain analytics company CipherTrace for an undisclosed sum, following the acquisition of digital identity verification company Ekata for $850 million announced earlier in the year. 

In early 2020, Mastercard acquired third-party risk management firm RiskRecon, and acquired Ethoca in 2019, a firm that helps merchants and issuers to identify and resolve digital frauds such as false chargebacks.

An analysis conducted by SecurityWeek shows that of the 240 M&A deals announced to date this year, five involved threat intelligence companies. Only six other cybersecurity M&A deals announced in 2024 have been valued at over $1 billion. 

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