Ellicott City cybersecurity company Huntress has acquired Atlanta startup Curricula for $22 million as it looks to incorporate education into its existing cybersecurity services.
The 70,000 businesses that rely on the Huntress platform now have an opportunity to use Curricula's cybersecurity education to help their employees avoid phishing scams and other common dangers. Huntress plans to recommend specific trainings for clients based on what threats are becoming more common within a company or industry. If Huntress notices a wave of ransomware or phishing, the company can recommend a Curricula course about the cyber attack to its clients.
Curricula has a unique approach to teaching cybersecurity. Instead of a dry corporate presentation, the Atlanta company uses animated characters to showcase safety tips through video lessons. The company also provides tests that turn learning about cybersecurity into something more akin to a game, making the seminars more engaging for employees.
“They're able to take just the average employee, someone like my mom, for example, who's less technical, and they are able to turn her into somebody who' is able to be the first line of defense in a company,” Huntress CEO Kyle Hanslovan said. “That requires a level of creativity that typically hackers like me don’t have.”
Many of the small-to-mid sized companies Huntress works with don't have a large amount of resources for training or to hire security experts, making Curricula's services especially valuable.
The $22 million acquisition is financed in part by Huntress’s $40 million series B funding round in 2021. Along with cash, some equity in Huntress is also being provided in the deal. The deal comes as Huntress has grown massively in the past two years. Huntress's software can be used on any laptop, giving the company a great opportunity to expand during remote work, and resulting in the company doubling its staff since May 2021.
Before the acquisition closed in July, Huntress was a client of Curricula, using the program to help educate its human resources department and other divisions about how to handle cyber crime.
All 13 employees will migrate to the Huntress team, expanding the company to around 214 employees. Curricula CEO Nick Santora will continue to lead his team after the acquisition.
"We didn't just want to buy their technology," Hanslovan said. "We wanted to buy their expertise."
In a statement, Santora said the deal will allow Curricula to reach any even wider customer base.
“Our animation studio creates security awareness content that is fun, memorable, and most importantly effective," he said. "Now under Huntress, we’re able to scale our global reach to resellers and service providers, setting the tone for what a remarkable security awareness program should be for every organization.”
The acquisition is Huntress’s second after the company acquired Level Effect in Jan. 2021. Hanslovan plans to expand through more acquisitions in the future, targeting companies with strong technical expertise and innovations that lack sales and marketing skills. Valuations have gone down, leading to more opportunities for favorable acquisition deals, Hanslovan said.
“This is the primetime for pre-IPO startups like Huntress to make really good acquisitions by taking advantage of the market,” he said.
