Signal Sciences Snapped up for $775M in Big LA SaaS Exit
Francesca Billington is a freelance reporter. Prior to that, she was a general assignment reporter for dot.LA and has also reported for KCRW, the Santa Monica Daily Press and local publications in New Jersey. She graduated from Princeton in 2019 with a degree in anthropology.
Cloud computing company Fastly announced plans to acquire Culver City-based Signal Sciences for $775 million on Thursday. It's the largest enterprise exit in L.A., according to Andrew Peterson, the CEO of Signal Sciences.
Signal, founded in 2014, protects web applications from attacks and data breaches for clients like Duo Security, Under Armor and DoorDash. With breaches costing an average $3.86 million, preventing them has become imperative for many businesses.
"The main reason why folks are adopting us is because all of them are going through this type of digital transformation movement," Peterson said. "They're building more software and trying to build it faster. That's what we empower them to do."
Fastly provides content delivery services to websites and apps with customers such as TikTok, Vimeo, Pinterest and The New York Times. The addition of Signal will help boost its security portfolio.
"We've been really big fans of their technology from the beginning," said Peterson, who before creating Signal Sciences used Fastly to build security technology for Etsy.
"Their story is very similar to ours in the sense that their founding team was also practitioners before," he said. "They also saw firsthand some of the problems of trying to modernize technology stacks and focused on empowering developers and development technology teams in the process of building critical infrastructure."
Signal Sciences has seen a boost in demand recently as in-person retail dropped during the pandemic and companies that had put off plans to build a web presence decided they couldn't wait any longer.
Signal Science's last funding round came in February of 2019 when the company brought in $35 million, led by Lead Edge Capital. They currently employ over 150 and are looking to hire more.
Fastly is based in San Francisco-based but half of its employees work from around the world, and many are in L.A., Peterson said.
Under the terms of the agreement, Fastly will acquire Signal Sciences for $200 million in cash and approximately $575 million worth of Class A Common Stock, according to a statement.
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Francesca Billington is a freelance reporter. Prior to that, she was a general assignment reporter for dot.LA and has also reported for KCRW, the Santa Monica Daily Press and local publications in New Jersey. She graduated from Princeton in 2019 with a degree in anthropology.
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