Cybersecurity: Hornetsecurity management sells to Proofpoint

Hano­ver, Germany — The German Hornet­secu­rity Group (“Hornet­secu­rity”), a port­fo­lio company of TA Asso­cia­tes, PSG Equity and Verdane, has ente­red into a binding agree­ment to be acqui­red by Proof­point, Inc. (“Proof­point”), a leading cyber­se­cu­rity and compli­ance provi­der. The esti­ma­ted purchase price is well over one billion USD. — Hornet­secu­rity is a global provi­der of holi­stic AI-powered M365 secu­rity, data protec­tion, compli­ance and secu­rity aware­ness solu­ti­ons. The company opera­tes in more than 120 count­ries and serves over 125,000 custo­mers through its inter­na­tio­nal sales network of more than 12,000 sales part­ners and mana­ged service providers. 

Hornet­secu­rity, foun­ded in 2007 by Daniel Hofmann and Oliver Dehning as anti­s­pam­eu­rope, has been heavily backed by private equity firm TA Asso­cia­tes since 2022. Early inves­tors included High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and HCS Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft GmbH (HCS).

The acqui­si­tion signi­fi­cantly expands Proof­poin­t’s exper­tise in human-cente­­red secu­rity solu­ti­ons for small and medium-sized busi­nesses. Hornet­secu­rity brings a powerful busi­ness with annual recur­ring reve­nues of over 160 million US dollars, annual growth of more than 20 percent and a perfor­mance above the Rule of 60 to the Proof­point portfolio. 

The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the second half of 2025 and is subject to custo­mary closing conditions.

Henge­ler Muel­ler advi­sed the manage­ment of Hornet­secu­rity in an inte­gra­ted team with Davis Polk on the transaction.

Henge­ler Muel­ler team for Hornetsecurity

Corporate/M&A: Dr. Ingo Berner (Berlin), Dr. Daniel Möritz (Munich, both lead, both part­ner), Sjard Seeger, Emre Aksoy (both Berlin), Dr. Alex­an­der Bömer, Rebecca Schlott­mann (both Munich, all associate),

IP/IT: Dr. Matthias Roth­kopf (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Patrick M. Schmidt (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt),

Anti­trust law: Dr. Sarah Milde (Part­ner), Annika Linne­rud (Asso­ciate, both Munich).

www.hengeler.com/de