This article was published on July 18, 2013

Symantec acquires Spanish startup PasswordBank for a reported $25m


Symantec acquires Spanish startup PasswordBank for a reported $25m

Spanish news outlet Expansion reported today that Symantec has acquired Spain’s PasswordBank for €19 million ($25 million). The Next Web then confirmed the acquisition with Symantec, but not the price.

“Symantec has acquired PasswordBank, a company with less than 20 employees based in Barcelona, Spain,” said a Symantec spokesperson. “PasswordBank is an independent provider of multifactor authentication, single sign on (SSO) and user management services.”

Symantec will use PasswordBank’s ‘expertise’ in single sign on technology to “enhance its secure sign on for web or cloud applications and further enhance its identity and context aware security, a key strategic initiative.”

According to the report [note: full report is paywalled], PasswordBank’s Barcelona HQ is becoming a Symantec ‘innovation center’, with employees in the US and Asia being brought into the security company’s own premises. The report says that 90% of staff have been retained following the deal. Symantec did not release any additional details of the deal, including the dollar amount.

PasswordBank provides ‘identity-as-a-service’ solutions, such as single sign-on, for the enterprise market. It’s easy to see how this could fit into Symantec’s product range.

The startup was founded in 2008 and raised a total of $3.5 million in funding according to CrunchBase.

Image credit: PAUL J.RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

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