K1 Investment Management announces it has invested over $200 Million in SecureAuth Corp., the leader in adaptive access control, as SecureAuth merges with Core Security, the leader in vulnerability discovery, identity governance and threat management. The merger is pending regulatory approval from the U.S. Federal government. The merged company combines the strengths of security operations and identity and access management (IAM) to offer a comprehensive platform for security operations. The newly merged company will bring together over 1,500 customers, 360 employees, and a network of global locations to become one of the largest independent security technology vendors in the market.

“We are excited to bring together two security leaders and create a unified platform for their clients,” says Neil Malik, CEO of K1 Investment Management. “K1 looks forward to partnering with management and continuing to help the companies’ partners and clients advance their security solutions.”

“The merger of SecureAuth and Core Security is about creating a company with a better approach for complex enterprise security challenges”, said Barry Cooper, VP of Marketing of Fishtech. “SecureAuth and Core Security bring together network, vulnerability and identity technologies which is a completely fresh and modern approach. We look forward to working closely with SecureAuth and Core Security as one our elite level partners.”

The security industry, a collection of disparate categories covering network; endpoint; IAM; enterprise mobility; security information and event management (SIEM); and vulnerability detection, requires a more unified way forward. Enterprises are mired in complexity by security products that integrate poorly, require outsized resources to manage, and offer little visibility into the most important security-related events as they are happening. The current approach continues to fail to prevent data breaches, which actually increased by 40% from 2015 to 2016. By bringing together network, endpoint, vulnerability, and identity security, SecureAuth and Core Security will offer the industry’s first identity-based security automation platform. Enterprises will be able to visualize and prioritize risks, shorten their response time, and provide context for identity actions that enable organizations to focus on the most meaningful threats as they occur. Security professionals will finally have both sophisticated protection and detection systems that work together, enabling them to visualize threats and use automated response to mitigate risks as they are being detected.

“The security industry must deliver an integrated and relevant approach to our customers,” says Jeff Kukowski, CEO of the combined company. “Despite the incredible amount of money spent on security technology, front-line security professionals in the most sophisticated Security Operations Centers (SOC) are challenged in managing and visualizing the full attack surface. Including identity information into the threat landscape alongside traditional network, endpoint, and vulnerability information substantially reduces threat discovery and response time. We are protecting over 50 million people today with identity security solutions and monitoring network activity on over 750 million devices worldwide, and we can now deliver an entirely new approach to integrating security operations and deploying advanced machine learning to achieve real automation in the SOC.”

The combined company serves organizations of all sizes across all industry verticals who believe that identity needs to be part of their security posture. With over 75 patents issued and pending, over 50 million identities protected and over 750 million devices monitored daily, the combined company serves:

• 18 percent of the global Fortune 1000

• Every branch of the U.S. military and over 50 government agencies

• 170 banks and financial institutions

• 200 healthcare providers and insurance companies in the U.S.

• 50 telecom companies, including the three largest in the world

The company is backed by K1 Investment Management and Toba Capital. Existing customers, resellers, and partners will benefit from access to new products and technology and will continue to experience the world-class customer success focus that they have relied upon. Additional capital at work will expand engineering, sales and customer success teams across all offices to better serve existing customers and the market.

This merger is pending regulatory approvals from U.S. government agencies.

About SecureAuth

SecureAuth is pioneering a better approach to enterprise security combining identity and access security, endpoint, network, and threat detection. Thousands of enterprise customers rely on SecureAuth for advanced threat discovery, protection, and detection capabilities. To learn more, contact SecureAuth at info@secureauth.com or visit www.secureauth.com.

About Core Security

Core Security provides companies with the security insight they need to know who, how, and what is vulnerable in their organization. The company’s threat-aware, identity & access, network security, and vulnerability management solutions provide actionable insight and context needed to manage security risks across the enterprise. This shared insight gives customers a comprehensive view of their security posture to make better security remediation decisions. Better insight allows organizations to prioritize their efforts to protect critical assets, take action sooner to mitigate access risk and react faster if a breach does occur. To learn more, contact Core Security at info@coresecurity.com or visit www.coresecurity.com.

About K1 Investment Management

K1 is an investment firm focusing on high-growth enterprise software companies globally. K1 seeks to help dynamic businesses achieve successful outcomes by identifying and executing organic and acquisition-based growth opportunities that position its companies as industry leaders. K1 typically invests alongside strong management teams that continue to guide their organizations on a day-to-day basis. K1’s investments vary in the level of ownership in order to meet the needs of entrepreneurs and managers. For more information about K1, please visit www.k1capital.com.

About Toba Capital

Toba Capital is an enterprise software focused venture fund controlled by Vinny Smith with over $500M invested across 39 companies.