Twistlock, Container Security Startup, to be Acquired by Palo Alto Networks

Written by David Marshall

Last week at KubeCon in Barcelona, container security was a hot topic of discussion!  So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this week, container security and cloud-native security startup Twistlock announced that it has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Palo Alto Networks. 

Twistlock, founded in 2015, offers vulnerability management, compliance, and run-time defense for cloud-native applications and workloads.  The company’s initial focus on securing Docker containers has expanded toward a much broader set of capabilities for securing applications built on multiple containerization platforms on the market, as well as serverless environment and virtual machines.  The company has more than 290 customers, with more than a quarter of those on the Fortune 100 list. 

According to Palo Alto Networks, the transaction will be an all cash sum of $410 million.  And upon closing the acquisition, Twistlock will become part of the Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud Security suite.  By joining Palo Alto Networks, Twistlock will be able to “accelerate” its “mission to create the world’s best cloud-native security platform.”

Prisma, used by approximately 9,000 customers worldwide, helps enable a secure journey to the cloud by providing organizations with visibility across the entire cloud environment while consistently governing access, protecting data, and securing applications regardless of location.  With the addition of Twistlock to the Prisma cloud security suite, Palo Alto Networks will be uniquely positioned to secure today’s modern applications throughout the entire life cycle, enabling organizations to deliver innovations that are secure, reliable, and scalable.

“Our vision for a cloud-native security platform is a natural fit with Palo Alto Networks’ cloud strategy.  We have liked-minded teams, and we’re looking forward to accelerating our ability to serve customers and partners on their cloud-native journey together,” said Ben Bernstein, co-founder and CEO, Twistlock.  Bernstein and co-founder Dima Stopel will join Palo Alto Networks upon close of the acquisition.

Kamal Shah, CEO of StackRox told VMblog, “This acquisition is a major validation of the strategic importance of the container security market and reflects the growing importance of the broader cloud security market.  Other, recent acquisitions have proven that companies that focus on the long-term and have the right architecture often win and I wouldn’t be surprised to see other security vendors acquire a container security vendor over the next 12 months.”

“Enterprises today are looking for ways to enforce security and compliance policies as they embrace the business benefits of cloud-native application architectures across multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments,” said Shah.  “Over the past 12 months, we have witnessed a shift in the cloud-native application architecture with the rapid emergence of Kubernetes as the defacto standard for deploying, scaling and managing containers.  As a result, the market has evolved and customers are looking for a solution that is focused on both, containers and Kubernetes.”

The acquisition is expected to close during Palo Alto Network’s fiscal fourth quarter, subject to the satisfaction of regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

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About the Author

David Marshall is an industry recognized virtualization and cloud computing expert, an eleven time recipient of the VMware vExpert distinction, and has been heavily involved in the industry for the past 20+ years.  To help solve industry challenges, he co-founded and helped start several successful virtualization software companies such as ProTier, Surgient, Hyper9 and Vertiscale. He also spent a number of years transforming desktop virtualization while at Virtual Bridges.

David is an author of two very popular server virtualization books and the Technical Editor on Wiley’s “Virtualization for Dummies” and “VMware VI3 for Dummies” books.  David authored countless articles for a number of well known technical magazines, including: InfoWorld, Virtual-Strategy and TechTarget.  In 2004, he founded the oldest independent virtualization and cloud computing news site, VMblog.com, which he still operates today.

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