The Boston based online backup and recovery company Carbonite, will be acquiring Webroot, an endpoint security vendor, for $618.5 million in cash.
By combining its cloud backup service with Webroot’s endpoint security tools, Carbonite believes it will give customers a more complete solution. Launched in 1997, the company reported $250 million in revenue for fiscal 2018.
CEO and President Mohamad Ali saw the deal as a way to expand the Carbonite offering. “With threats like ransom ware evolving daily, our customers and partners are increasingly seeking a more comprehensive solution that is both powerful and easy to use. Backup and recovery, combined with endpoint security and threat intelligence, is a differentiated solution that provides one, comprehensive data protection platform,” Ali explained in a statement.
While Carbonite sells mainly through Value Added Resellers (VARs), Webroot’s customers are mainly 14,000 Managed Service Providers (MSPs). This deal would increase its market reach through to the MSP channel. Webroot already has 300,000 customers
Carbonite has acquired several other companies over the last several years, including buying Mozy from Dell a year ago for $145 million. The strategy is about expanding the capabilities of the platform to offer a more comprehensive set of tools beyond core backup and recovery.
