Cybersecurity vendor Forcepoint has been acquired from defense contractor Raytheon Technologies by global investment firm Francisco Partners.
The firm announced the closing of the transaction today. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Forcepoint, formerly known as Websense, provides behavior-based cybersecurity solutions that protect the critical data and networks of thousands of customers worldwide by adapting to risk in real-time.
Four appointments were made by Forcepoint to coincide with the transaction’s closing. Dave Stevens was named senior vice president of strategy and execution, John DiLullo is the company’s new chief revenue officer, and Sean Berg has been promoted to president of global governments and critical infrastructure from his previous role as senior VP and general manager for Forcepoint’s business unit.
The company’s board of directors has appointed Manny Rivelo as chief executive officer with immediate effect. Previous executive roles held by Rivelo include chief customer officer at Arista Networks, president and CEO as well as executive vice president, security, service provider and strategic solutions at F5 Networks, president and CEO of AppViewX, and various senior leadership roles at Cisco Systems.
“Cybersecurity has never been more important for businesses and governments around the world,” said Rivelo. “As we continue to see broad-scale global attacks, the cybersecurity industry needs to evolve to deliver security capabilities to match those of today’s sophisticated threat actors.”
Rivelo added that all organizations need to evolve their security posture so that cybersecurity is holistically integrated across their business operations and into their culture.
“It can no longer be viewed as ‘just an IT issue’,” said Rivelo.
As CEO, Rivelo intends to focus the company’s strategy on accelerating enterprise and government-agency adoption of emerging Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture.
“I look forward to solidifying Forcepoint’s leadership position as the global cybersecurity partner of choice for enterprises and government agencies,” said Rivelo.
Founded in 1999 and based in San Francisco, Francisco Partners specializes in partnering with technology and technology-enabled businesses. Since its launch, the firm has raised over $24bn in committed capital and invested in more than 300 technology companies.
