Contact: Brenon Daly
Bitdefender is rumored to be the latest European antivirus (AV) vendor of scale to be picked up by a buyout shop. Several market sources have indicated that Romania-based Bitdefender, which is a division of a larger company and hasn’t taken outside funding, has been sold. Neither the price nor the private equity (PE) acquirer could be immediately learned.
According to our understanding, Bitdefender generates about $50m in revenue. The consumer-focused company says its AV technology protects 500 million users, which is more than twice as many as rival AVG claims. In addition to selling directly, Bitdefender also OEMs its offering to more than 100 partners, which partially accounts for how the company’s technology has made it onto a half-billion machines.
A number of PE firms already have Europe-based, consumer-focused AV providers in their portfolios, including Apax Partners with Sophos, Summit Partners with AVAST and TA Associates with AVG, although that company is now publicly traded. Also, General Atlantic (briefly) owned a minority stake of Kaspersky Lab.
In general, those investments haven’t generated stellar returns for the buyout barons. GA had a less-than-harmonious holding of Russian firm Kaspersky for about a year. AVAST didn’t make it public when it was on file two years ago. And both Sophos and AVG have been valued in the range of 2-3x sales. Applying that multiple to Bitdefender would value it at roughly $100-150m.
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