Microsoft In Acquisition Talks With Israeli Cyber Security Firm

Microsoft is shopping for a hightech property in Israel—namely, cyber security company Aorato, according to Bloomberg.

The U.S. giant is in early stage talks to buy Aorato. But Aorato may have other ideas too, and Globes says it’s likely that little Aorato is also negotiating with other companies.

Sources believe that Aorato will be sold for about $200 million.

Aorato raised $10 million in January from Accel Partners Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and Glilot Capital Partners, and private investors Mickey Boodaei, a co-founder of Imperva Inc. and Trusteer. Last year Boodaei earned $151 million from the sale of Trusteer to IBM.

Aorato was founded in 2012 by CEO Idan Plotnik, VP R&D Michael Dolinsky, and VP professional services Ohad Plotnik. The company is based in Herzliya, has 10 employees and has raised $11 million to date.

All the founders served in the IDF cyber security unit, and have a decade of experience in the field. The company says that its product is “the first context-aware, behavior-based Directory Services Application Firewall (DAF). The company’s solution profiles, then not only learns, but also predicts entities’ behaviors enabling context aware real-time decision making.”

The Plotnik brothers previously founded Foreity which was acquired by Aman Group in 2012.

This article appeared in print in the July 17th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.