Fastly, an edge-to-cloud platform, announced they had finalized a deal to acquire Signal Sciences on Thursday last week. As per the deal, Signal Sciences will receive $200M cash and an additional $557M in Class A stock. Using Signal Sciences’ technology, Fastly plans to create a new security solution, Secure@Edge, to offer scalable and flexible API security.
As you can see in the graph above, security-related acquisitions are increasing for CDN companies; in 2017, the peak year for acquisitions, there were four reported deals closed. The York IE team expects to see more deals similar to the one highlighted in this week’s TOW as companies continue their transition to the cloud.
Why this transaction?
The York IE team chose this as our Transaction of the Week (TOW) to showcase how companies are addressing the accelerated growth of digital transformation. In last week’s TOW, we talked about the digitization of workflows and their ability to reduce bottlenecks; this week, we take a look at digitization in relation to security tools. As companies continue transitioning to the cloud their current security solutions are proving to be inadequate at providing scalable protection.Data Shows CDN Players Turning Towards Security
Fastly’s acquisition of Signal Sciences is a perfect example of companies attempting to augment their security solutions. According to data the York IE team gathered, this deal follows a trend of similar acquisitions:
As you can see in the graph above, security-related acquisitions are increasing for CDN companies; in 2017, the peak year for acquisitions, there were four reported deals closed. The York IE team expects to see more deals similar to the one highlighted in this week’s TOW as companies continue their transition to the cloud. 
