Proofpoint to Purchase Information Safety Stalwart Varonis for $6.3B

Proofpoint plans to make the most important cybersecurity acquisition of 2026, buying Varonis for $6.3 billion to unify knowledge visibility, id, entry permissions, menace safety and synthetic intelligence governance.

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The deal will be part of Silicon Valley-based Proofpoint’s know-how round human and agent cybersecurity, communications safety and knowledge loss prevention with Miami-based Varonis’ experience in knowledge safety posture administration, knowledge entry governance and delicate knowledge safety. Proofpoint CEO Sumit Dhawan stated safety is shifting from defending infrastructure and folks to securing knowledge and AI.

“By connecting communications, identities, permissions, knowledge, and AI, we’re creating an intelligence benefit that helps clients see danger extra clearly, reply sooner, and defend in opposition to the following technology of AI dangers,” Dhawan stated Thursday. “This can be a defining step in Proofpoint’s evolution right into a cybersecurity platform constructed for the way forward for AI.”

This would be the largest buy of a pure-play cybersecurity agency in 2026, dwarfing Accenture’s $3.25 billion buy of Dragos final month. It is also the most important deal in Proofpoint’s 24-year historical past, besting the corporate’s $1.8 billion purchase of cloud-based e mail safety supplier Hornetsecurity in December 2025. Varonis’ inventory is up $2.63 – or 5.56% – to $49.97 per share in after-hours buying and selling.

The deal announcement comes lower than 4 months after Bloomberg reported that Blackstone, Thoma Bravo and Vista Fairness Companions expressed preliminary curiosity in Varonis. Final month, Bloomberg reported that Thoma Bravo-owned Proofpoint was in talks to purchase Varonis.

Varonis shareholders will get $49.75 per share, a 52% premium over the corporate’s closing worth previous to the primary Bloomberg report (see: Why Proofpoint Is Eyeing a Purchase of Information Safety Agency Varonis).

Regardless of Varonis’ broad knowledge safety portfolio, the corporate has struggled available in the market. Its inventory hasn’t recovered from an October 2025 disclosure of a pointy drop in renewal charges for its on-premises subscription enterprise, with Varonis’ inventory right this moment buying and selling $14.40 – or 22.9% – decrease than it did on Oct. 24, 2025. Varonis in 2025 lower its workers by 120 workers.

Varonis co-founder and CEO Yaki Faitelson agreed to offer companies to Proofpoint as a non-executive officer for an 18-month interval following the closing of the acquisition. Faitelson, 50, has served as Varonis’ CEO for the reason that firm’s founding in 2004. BlackRock is Varonis’ largest stockholder and owns 9.1% of the corporate’s inventory. The acquisition is predicted to shut within the first half of 2027 (see: Why Safety Agency Varonis Is Eyeing a Sale to Non-public Fairness).

How Proofpoint’s Technological Footprint Aligns With Varonis

Dhawan stated organizations should perceive the place delicate info resides, who or what can entry it and the way that info is getting used. The mixed firm intends to deal with these necessities by means of built-in knowledge discovery, classification, entry governance and automatic safety, based on Dhawan.

“By integrating our capabilities, we intend to ship one of many trade’s most complete knowledge and AI safety options, from knowledge posture (DSPM) and entry (DAG) to insider danger, DLP, and AI governance, setting a brand new trade normal for safeguarding delicate info throughout the agentic workspace,” Dhawan wrote in a weblog Thursday.

Typical safety processes can’t adequately handle AI brokers, Dhawan stated. The mixed platform is meant to constantly uncover and classify delicate knowledge, implement safety insurance policies and remediate dangers by means of automation. Proofpoint plans to attach its menace intelligence and behavioral alerts with Varonis’ visibility into knowledge entry and exercise.

“AI brokers can entry, analyze, and transfer huge volumes of information in seconds,” Dhawan wrote. “Securing this new atmosphere requires built-in intelligence and safety wherever knowledge lives and strikes, and wherever people and AI brokers work together with it – on the pace and scale of AI.”

Proofpoint understands how cyberattacks originate by means of individuals and more and more by means of AI brokers, whereas Varonis identifies the delicate info attackers search, based on Varonis co-founder and CEO Yaki Faitelson. Varonis offers visibility into knowledge places, entry privileges and knowledge exercise throughout cloud, SaaS, database and on-premises environments, Faitelson stated.

“Varonis understands what these assaults are after,” Faitelson wrote in a weblog Thursday. “We all know the place delicate knowledge lives, who and what can entry it, and the way it’s getting used throughout cloud, SaaS, databases, and on-prem environments. We cut back the blast radius earlier than an attacker, an insider, or an AI agent can do harm.”

The mixture of Proofpoint and Varonis will serve greater than 16,000 enterprises and hundreds of thousands of smaller organizations worldwide. Proofpoint stated its current operations embody 3.4 million clients, 2.37 trillion emails scanned yearly, 410 billion knowledge safety occasions ingested and greater than 13,000 sensors throughout 105 nations.

“Along with Proofpoint, we’ll develop into one of many main cybersecurity corporations on this planet,” Faitelson wrote. “The mixed firm may have the know-how, sources, and scale to develop into the belief layer for the agentic workspace.”