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McAfee expands its consumer VPN business by snapping up TunnelBear
Cybersecurity firm McAfee LLC has made its second acquisition following its spinoff from Intel Corp. , snapping up Canadian virtual private network provider TunnelBear Inc. today for an undisclosed amount.
Founded in 2011, TunnelBear offers a two-switch VPN service that allows its users to access content across the world by providing access to location-restricted sites in specific countries. Primarily targeted at consumers, plans start at 500 megabytes per month for free up to $9.99 per month for unlimited data, with a $4.99-a-month unlimited option if payment is made for a full year.
Numbers are hard to come by, but TunnelBear claimed to “reach” 22 million people while McAfee noted that it is also profitable.
For McAfee, the acquisition is claimed to give the company world-class technology and a business that strategically aligns with its vision of protecting what matters most to its customers, including online behavior, personal data and sensitive information. Post acquisition, TunnelBear will be integrated into McAfee’s existing Safe Connect VPN product although the brand and site will still continue to operate as a separate entity.
“TunnelBear has built an engaging and profitable direct-to-consumer brand, and we’re confident this acquisition will serve both our end users and partners by embedding its best-in-class, hardened network into our Safe Connect product,” McAfee Chief Executive Officer Christopher Young said in a statement.
The deal comes a few months after McAfee announced its acquisition of Skyhigh Networks Nov. 11, a cloud access security broker startup that at its last round of funding was valued at $400 million, meaning McAfee likely paid somewhere north of that number in the deal.
McAfee’s decision to buy a consumer-facing VPN provider does come as somewhat of a surprise, given that post-Intel spinoff it was said to be repositioning its enterprise business toward detection and the cloud. Conversely, TunnelBear does sit well alongside McAfee’s consumer antivirus software business, for which the company is best-known.
Image: TunnelBear
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