Avira has been acquired by Investcorp

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Anopheles

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Jun 30, 2018
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Avira Blog: Moving on, together: Avira teams up with Investcorp Technology Partners - Avira Blog
Investcorp Blog: Investcorp acquires Germany’s leading cybersecurity company, Avira - Investcorp


Mergers and acquisitions largely grinded to a halt at the end of March, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic spreading around the world, but today comes news of a deal out of Europe that underscores where pockets of activity are still happening. Avira, a cybersecurity company based out of Germany that provides antivirus, identity management and other tools both to consumers and as a white-label offering from a number of big tech brands, has been snapped up by Investcorp Technology Partners, the PE division of Investcorp Bank. Investcorp’s plan is to help Avira make acquisitions in a wider security consolidation play.

The financial terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed in the companies’ joint announcement, but the CEO of Avira, Travis Witteveen, and ITP’s MD, Gilbert Kamieniecky, both said it gives Avira a total valuation of $180 million. The deal will involve ITP taking a majority ownership in the company, with Avira founder Tjark Auerbach retaining a “significant” stake of the company in the deal, Kamieniecky added.

Avira is not a tech startup, or not in the typical sense. It was founded in 1986, and has been bootstrapped, in that it seems never to have taken any outside investment as it has grown. Witteveen said that it has “tens of millions” of users today of its own-branded products — its anti-virus software has been resold by the likes of Facebook (as part of its now-dormant antivirus marketplace) — and many more via the white-label deals it makes with big names. Strategic partners today include NTT, Deutsche Telekom, IBM, Canonical, and more.

He said that the company has had many strategic approaches for acquisition from the ranks of tech companies, and also from more typical investors, but these were not routes that it has wanted to follow, since it wanted to grow as its own business, and needed more of a financial injection to do that than what it could get from more standard VC deals.

“We wanted a partnership where someone could step in and support our organic growth, and the inorganic [acquisition] opportunity,” he said.

Source: German security firm Avira has been acquired by Investcorp at a $180M valuation – TechCrunch
 
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Der.Reisende

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Dec 27, 2014
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This could be a good thing and maybe finally the ridiculous Luke Filewalker will be gone.
Hopefully!
This, and the missing BB, plus all the bloatware, are what I dislike about that product.
I wonder why it's so popular here (because it's Made in Germany? Go not far to the East, and find something much better, at least in terms of protection - Avast).

@stefanos they add bloatware
Even possible? :D
Their Avira Starter or whatever it is called is the worst I've ever seen in a AV product. With all that useless bonus software it installs / offers.
 

ichito

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Official anouncements on pages of both sides of agreement
I thought that even if it will be something like new finacial partner it will be rather from China. 9 years ago Avira started cooperation with Tencent and Qihoo and even have opened own office/agency in China. Now we have Bahrain, Arabian Gulf...petro dollars in background?
 

Lenny_Fox

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Long time ago, when my father configured our PC's it had the red umbrella. I remember my father being proud about the fact that he could suppress the advertising in the free version, at some point (when I got my first new PC), he put on Avast because he could not block Avira's advertising anymore.

When looking at AV-Test and AV-Comparatives test results, Avira always seemed doing well (often behind Kaspersky and Bitdefender) in the top five. Why are so many members negative about Avira? Does it perform mediocre in the malware hub testing of MT-members?
 

WhiteMouse

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Apr 19, 2017
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Long time ago, when my father configured our PC's it had the red umbrella. I remember my father being proud about the fact that he could suppress the advertising in the free version, at some point (when I got my first new PC), he put on Avast because he could not block Avira's advertising anymore.

When looking at AV-Test and AV-Comparatives test results, Avira always seemed doing well (often behind Kaspersky and Bitdefender) in the top five. Why are so many members negative about Avira? Does it perform mediocre in the malware hub testing of MT-members?
There are two reasons I don't like about Avira:
- Windows XP GUI.
- Have anyone ever seen Avira's BB working?
 

XLR8R

Level 4
Jan 20, 2020
164
Yeah specially F-Secure. I liked the SAFE version. It was the best version of Avira signatures with a good BB. On the plus side, if F-Secure switches to Kaspersky engine, it'll be a win for them too with Kaspersky signatures and their DeepGuard.
It is not likely F-Secure will use Kaspersky engine again. It's either Avira or BitDefender for them going forward.
 
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