Cybersecurity firm FireEye, Inc. has acquired cyber threat intelligence startup iSIGHT Partners, Inc. for up to $275 million, consisting of an initial payment of $200 million with performance-based incentives that could earn former iSIGHT shareholders $75 million if the business meets certain sales targets through mid-2018.

According to Reuters, the sales figure is less than a third of the $1 billion valuation iSight Chief Executive John Watters said the company would be worth in a potential initial public offering mooted for later this year.

Founded in 2006, iSIGHT offers a threat intelligence network that monitors and mines global cyber threat development and thousands of threat actors.

The company’s research arm claims to understand the social, business, political, and popular cultural contexts from which threats originate, differentiating it from their competitors by capturing the motivations and intents of those launching cyber attacks and characterizing the methods and technologies they employ and those they are targeting.

On the analysis front, iSIGHT intelligence products link observable attack methodologies to threat sources at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels, and defines threat ecosystems by threat and sector targeted, with intelligence delivered in ways that meet operational and business needs.

iSIGHT claims to have over 350 dedicated staff including more than 250 cyber threat intelligence experts across 17 countries, covering 29 languages.

“This acquisition extends FireEye’s intelligence lead with an offering no one else in the industry can match,” FireEye Chief Executive Officer David DeWalt said in a statement. “The biggest mistake most people make is thinking threat intelligence is a collection of virus definitions in a shared database.”

“Forward-looking security organizations – from governments to the private sector – know threat intelligence is the key to establishing a robust security posture tuned for the threats targeting each organization. As the cyber operations become integrated with physical, geopolitical and competitive conflict, an intelligence-led approach to security will be key in detecting the most sophisticated threats and responding to them quickly and effectively.”

Complimentary buy

iSIGHT provides a good fit besides FireEye’s endpoint security solutions and incident response services delivered when it acquired Mandiant, Inc. two years ago.

“With the combined resources of FireEye, Mandiant and iSIGHT, we can make the benefits of intelligence-led security available to a broad range of organizations,” iSIGHT Founder and Chief Executive Officer John Watters added. “When coupled with the technology and services of FireEye and Mandiant, this intelligence capability is a game changer for the industry and enables an intelligence-led security model that other security companies will be hard pressed to replicate.”

Prior to acquisition, iSIGHT had raised $46.3 million in funding from investors including Bessemer Venture Partners.

The deal is not subject to shareholder approval and formally closed January 14.

Image credit: iSIGHT/screenshot