CrowdStrike logo is seen in this illustration taken July 29, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Jan 8 (Reuters) - CrowdStrike said on Thursday it would buy identity security startup SGNL in a deal valued at $740 million aiming to enhance its cybersecurity tools to help customers counter artificial intelligence-powered threats.
The cybersecurity company looks to benefit from SGNL's "continuous identity" technology to prevent hackers from exploiting user identities as entry points for data theft with constant evaluations at a time when businesses are increasingly granting autonomous access to AI agents.
CrowdStrike entered the identity security market with its acquisition of Preempt Security in 2020. Its identity business had generated more than $435 million in annual recurring revenue as of the second quarter of fiscal 2026.
"We have already a big business there. And now what SGNL provides to us is really an identity fabric. And if we think about the threat environments, the adversaries aren't breaking in; they're logging in, and they're abusing identity," CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz told Reuters.
Founded in 2021 by Scott Kriz and Erik Gustavson, SGNL offers an identity security platform that manages access in real time for protecting human, machine and AI identities across cloud and enterprise systems.
SGNL has a "small team," and everyone will join CrowdStrike. "We're buying a team and technology. We want the great people that come with it," Kurtz said, signaling no planned layoffs.
CrowdStrike said it is leveraging AI to boost its security operations center with autonomous AI agents, cutting down complex security tasks from days to hours, a key focus of its investment strategy for 2026 and beyond.
The integration of SGNL's features into the Falcon platform is expected to be "relatively easy" for existing CrowdStrike users after the deal closes in the first quarter of fiscal 2027.
CrowdStrike said the acquisition's purchase price is expected to be paid mainly in cash, with a portion in stock subject to vesting conditions.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in BengaluruEditing by Alan Barona)
