Cybersecurity M&A activity momentum continues into 2025

It’s a bustling time to be in the cybersecurity industry as mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity continues to heat up.

Last month, Google turned heads when it announced its acquisition of cybersecurity start-up Wiz for a whopping $32 billion, one of its largest purchases to date.

But the tech giant’s steep deal was just one of many purchases made last quarter. According to recent PitchBook data, there were 46 M&A deals among US cybersecurity companies in Q1, up from 35 deals in the same period last year. The research firm tracked 102 M&A deals amongst global cybersecurity companies in Q1, up from 95 last year.

Buying binge. Jimmie Lee, founder and CEO of JLee & Associates, a Bellevue, Washington-based technology advisory firm, told IT Brew that the M&A market has remained “hot” because large companies are not able to innovate as fast as smaller companies. Because of this, these companies look toward M&A to fill their need for security capabilities and talent.

“What companies are looking for is…a way of being able to embed the secure capability that is actually going to operate as if they were an outward client, but operate internally,” Lee said. “And not only do they get that, but they get the talent with it.”

Keep calm and acquire on. With news of impending tariffs dominating the headlines and a general sense of uncertainty in the market, some may be wondering if the M&A momentum will continue on into the rest of the year. Umesh Padval, managing director at Thomvest Ventures, however, told IT Brew that he remains optimistic about deal-making activity in the industry.

“If the market stabilizes in the second half, you’ll see an acceleration of M&A and IPOs,” Padval predicted.

However, Padval noted that colossal deals such as Google’s purchase of Wiz or Cisco’s 2024 acquisition of Splunk may not happen frequently.

“M&A will continue, but the Wiz type and a Splunk are rare,” he said. “It will be one to two a year. That’s it. Majority is going to be less than billion-dollar acquisitions.”