I am delighted to announce that Digital Shadows has entered a definitive agreement to be acquired by ReliaQuest pending customary closing requirements (including regulatory approval). Combining one of the leaders in digital risk protection and external threat intelligence with the leading Open XDR platform will give security teams better ability to detect and respond to threats with real-time internal and external visibility. This is great news for our customers, partners and employees and an exciting next chapter in our story.

Why ReliaQuest?

Part of our core mission since starting Digital Shadows has been to deliver meaningful intelligence to clients that is easy to use. Unlike many players in the space, we focused on eliminating the noise of traditional threat intelligence and adding as much rich context to each of our alerts as possible so that our clients can act fast and with confidence. Our platform was built with today’s overloaded security team at heart, who demanded a more relevant and actionable approach to threat intelligence.

That desire for security to become an operational accelerator, and not a burdensome process is shared by ReliaQuest in their mission to “make security possible”.

ReliaQuest’s world-class service connects the SOC, by providing internal connectivity across multiple technologies to speed up response and decrease time to action. They extend detection and response across their customers’ network, cloud infrastructure, and endpoints for both security and business applications.

By embedding external intelligence from Digital Shadows, clients will now be able to ingest intelligence, risks, and alerts from SearchLight to trigger actions in the SOC as well as use enrichment for other SOC incidents to reduce false positives and drive better, faster business outcomes.

In addition to the tremendous opportunities for our joint solution, joining our two world-class teams will provide exponential growth opportunities for employees, partners, and our clients. Joining forces with ReliaQuest provides an exciting opportunity to accelerate the delivery of our roadmap and our go to market efforts, allowing us to extend our lead as one of the strongest digital risk protection and external threat intelligence offering in the market.

Where do we go from here?

The opportunities ahead for Digital Shadows clients, partners and employees have never been greater. We completed our best year ever in 2021, with record sales and retention taking us over 400 clients in 52 countries. Teaming up with ReliaQuest, who themselves have over 300 clients and a >50% growth rate, will help bring our solutions to a broader audience, helping to protect against cybercrime and deliver incredible value to clients, partners and shareholders.

To our partners – you have been and remain critical to us as part of the combined company. I am delighted to state emphatically that we are committed to growing our channel program including our relationships with MSSPs, resellers and technical alliance partners and remain a channel first company both now and for the future.

Furthermore,  the agreement is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing
conditions, and as such, the transaction has not yet closed. Until then, both companies remain
separate and independent and we are running our business as usual.

This is truly a growth acquisition, and we are excited to continue to add to the Digital Shadows
team. If you want to be part of our journey, please visit our careers page for current open roles. 
Combining with ReliaQuest promises faster growth, more resources, and career opportunities at
Digital Shadows.

A look back and a look ahead

Since James and I started Digital Shadows in 2011 around a kitchen table in London, we have been driven by the mission of protecting organizations from digital risks outside their perimeter. In that time, the digital risk protection and threat intelligence categories developed around us. It has been a privilege to be named the leader in a category we helped to invent. At this inflection point in our journey, it is difficult not to look back over our great history and reflect on how we got to this moment.

Over the past 11 years, the most critical pieces have been:

• Our team: One of our core values is ‘All About the People’ and almost all my proudest memories with Digital Shadows are people related. We have built an incredible team, celebrated many successes along the way, and overcome countless challenges that strengthened our company and our offering. Our number one company value, to “Do the right thing”, has flowed through the business since our early days, and the caliber of decent, kind, committed human beings that have been part of our journey is testament to that. I’m excited by the additional resources we will have to invest in growing our teams alongside ReliaQuest, and the shared culture between the companies. This is truly a growth acquisition, and we are excited to continue to add to the Digital Shadows team. If you want to be part of our journey, please visit our careers page for current open roles. Combining with ReliaQuest promises faster growth, more resources, and career opportunities at Digital Shadows.

• Our clients: Without you we are nothing. We have been blessed with many fantastic clients over the years across seemingly every industry around the world. I’ve built some great personal relationships over that time, and I am proud to serve many fantastic organizations and teams. I’d like to thank in particular the early adopter clients who came with James and I at the start of the journey and who helped to make the product what it is today. As we have scaled, we have focused on maintaining a partnership approach with our clients since we are all in this fight together. We will continue to innovate with you in that spirit of partnership.

• Our partners: Without the incredible partner network we have built up over the years we would never have reached the size and scale we have today. We have been lucky to work with many outstanding resellers, MSSPs and alliance partners. We appreciate your partnership.

I can’t individually thank all the wonderful people that helped to turn Digital Shadows into the category-leader it is today, but you know who you are. James and I will always remain grateful for your belief in us over the years.

Importantly, this is far from the end of the story. It is instead a big milestone and a huge inflection point in our growth. At close we will become part of the ReliaQuest and KKR family, with more resources at our disposal to develop stronger threat intelligence and digital risk protection offerings faster than ever. We are looking forward to this exciting next phase in our growth.