A private equity firm from the United States called Thoma Bravo paid more than $5 billion to buy the British cybersecurity and AI company Darktrace. Mike Lynch, one of the investors who helped start Darktrace, is currently on trial in the US for theft and conspiracy.
The business said their technology was “cutting edge” and not worth what it was worth in their country. Its “operating and financial achievements have not been reflected commensurately in its valuation, with shares trading at a significant discount to its global peer group,” the Darktrace board said.
They told them that Thoma Bravo’s deal would help the business grow in a safe and private way. It’s not the first business to leave the London stock market. Some other businesses are Arm Holdings, which makes chips, and Flutter, which runs casinos.
Experts have said that Darktrace is not as good as its competitors, even though the company has tried to hide its true worth over the years. The deal said that each share was worth 620p, but in London, each share was only worth 250p.
As Poppy Gustafsson, CEO of Darktrace, put it, “From our base in Cambridge, we are building a world-leading company using a unique form of artificial intelligence to address the societal challenge of cybersecurity.”
“From our base in Cambridge, we are building a world-leading company using a unique form of artificial intelligence to solve the problem of cybersecurity,” Gustafsson said.
Thoma Bravo is a big investor in defense and software projects around the world. He is based in Chicago.