The French company Vade goes under the German flag. The specialist in mailbox security and the fight against phishing announced yesterday that it was joining the German group HornetSecurity Group. The transaction was concluded but the exact financial terms were not communicated.
This will nevertheless initiate a redistribution of roles in the governance of the new group: Vade specifies that the management team now occupies different management positions within HornetSecurity and Georges Lotigier, founding CEO of Vade, has become a member of the supervisory board of HornetSecurity. HornetSecurity. Daniel Hofmann, Managing Director of HornetSecurity, will lead the new group.
The new group will have a total of 700 employees and Vade should contribute 30% of total turnover, with the new group hoping to exceed 50 million euros in annual revenue according to Le Monde Informatique.
Logical sequence
The stated objective of this merger is to make the group “a global benchmark for cloud-based cybersecurity services.” The German company intends to take advantage of this acquisition to offer its own solutions on the French market through Vade, in particular its 365 Total Protection service which offers security services for the Microsoft 365 offer.
HornetSecurity is a German company based in Hannover and founded in 2007, specializing in securing cloud and email communications. Since 2019, it has made several acquisitions of other companies specializing in solutions to combat spam and phishing. Vade therefore seemed a designated candidate for takeover: the French company, formerly Vade Secure, founded in 2008, specializes in the resale of e-mail security and filtering products marketed to access providers, small and mid-sized businesses and through managed service providers.
The French company had taken a first step towards internationalization in 2019, but encountered legal difficulties following a lawsuit brought by Proofpoint, a major American player in the sector, which considered that a former employee of one of its subsidiaries misappropriated trade secrets when hired by Vade. The dispute ended in 2021 with Vade being ordered to pay a fine of $14 million, a fine confirmed at the start of 2023 by the American courts.