Noname Security, a cybersecurity startup that protects APIs, is in talks with Akamai Technologies to sell itself for $500 million, according to people familiar with the deal.
Co-founded in 2020 by Oz Golan and Shay Levi, Noname is headquartered in Palo Alto but has roots in Israel. The startup has raised $220 million from venture investors and was last valued at $1 billion when it raised $135 million in Series C led by Georgian and Lightspeed in December 2021. Ta. The sale price is a significant discount to its appraised value, but the current transaction will be done in cash, the people said. This Agreement is not final and is subject to change or not happening at all.
Other investors who backed Noname include Insight Partners, ForgePoint, Cyberstarts, Next47, The Syndicate Group, and more.
The potential deal price is half of Mr. Noname's previous private valuation, but early investors will receive meaningful profits from the sale. Meanwhile, the deal means late-stage investors, especially those who invested in the last round, will see a return on the money they put in, if not the return they expected in those heady, cash-rich days of 2021. You should be able to recover the full amount. There was a flow, and valuations were optimistic.
The deal will increase the company's annual recurring revenue by about 15 times, the person said. Noname's approximately 200 employees will transition to Akamai once the sale is completed.
Akamai declined to comment. “As a matter of policy, we do not comment on rumors or speculation,” a Noname Security spokesperson told TechCrunch.
The Information reported in January that Noname was looking to raise another round of funding at a significantly lower valuation. In February, Israeli news outlet Calcalist reported that Noname was in talks with multiple potential buyers, including Akamai.
Many venture capital-backed companies that raised capital at the height of the tech boom saw their valuations plummet after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. Many companies are currently looking for buyers and new funding rounds at the same time, a process known in the financial industry as a two-track process. Meanwhile, many late-stage VCs are seeking liquidity after the IPO market has been frozen for more than a year. So the general mood in the venture world is that if his strong IPO doesn't come back soon, it will be a bargain period for M&A activity.