Palo Alto splurges $156m on cloud security startup

Cybersecurity vendor to acquire US-based Bridgecrew

Palo Alto Networks is set to acquire cloud security startup Bridgecrew for $156m in cash.

California-based Bridgecew was established in 2019 and specialises in cloud security, in particular its infrastructure-as-code (IaC) security platform which gives developers and DevOps teams a "systematic way" to enhance infrastructure security standards throughout the application development cycle.

Palo Alto intends for the acquisition to enable its "shift left" Prisma Cloud offering to become the first cloud security platform to deliver security across the full application lifecycle.

"Shift left security is a must-have in any cloud security platform," stated Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks.

"Developers don't want to wait until runtime to find out their security is not working, and the CISO charged with protecting the entire organisation certainly values higher security from fixing issues earlier in the development lifecycle.

"We are thrilled to welcome Bridgecrew, and their widely adopted and trusted developer security platform, to Palo Alto Networks. When combined, Prisma Cloud customers will benefit from having security embedded in the very foundation of their cloud infrastructure."

Bridgecrew co-founders Idan Tendler, Barak Schoster, Guy Eisenkot and their team will join Palo Alto Networks.

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of Palo Alto's fiscal year.

"We have dedicated ourselves to building developer-first tools that bridge the gap between developers and cloud security," added Bridgecrew co-founder Tendler.

"By joining Palo Alto Networks, we will be able to bring codified cloud security to the developer community on a wider scale. We look forward to working together to continue shifting cloud security left."