Carbonite Buys Webroot in Bid to Become Comprehensive Data Protection Leader

In addition to combining Webroot’s security portfolio with its own BDR and high availability products, the $618.5 million deals also merges Webroot’s extensive base of MSP partners with Carbonite’s VAR-heavy channel. By Rich Freeman

Carbonite Inc. has acquired security vendor Webroot Inc. for approximately $618.5 million in cash.

The deal positions Carbonite, which has been on an acquisition spree in recent years, to evolve from its current position as a maker of backup and high availability solutions into a provider of comprehensive data protection offerings. Carbonite expects the acquisition to close in the first quarter of 2019.

“The acquisition of Webroot dramatically accelerates our progress towards becoming the leading data protection company,” said Carbonite CEO Mohamad Ali in a press statement. “With threats like ransomware evolving daily, our customers and partners are increasingly seeking a more comprehensive solution that is both powerful and easy to use. Backup and recovery, combined with endpoint security and threat intelligence, is a differentiated solution that provides one, comprehensive data protection platform…The Webroot team has a passion for building technology to simplify the way customers protect their important data, and we are excited to welcome them.”

Webroot also brings an extensive base of MSP partners to Carbonite’s existing, VAR-heavy channel. “Webroot’s leading MSP partners and RMM relationships provide Carbonite with a new channel for increased scale and market expansion,” said Carbonite today in a press release.

Charlie Tomeo, Webroot’s vice president of worldwide business sales, addressed the implications of Webroot’s change of ownership for the vendor’s MSP partners in a statement emailed to ChannelPro.

“I’m personally thrilled for the opportunity ahead for both our MSP community and our RMM / platform partners,” Tomeo said. “While we are in the early stages of transition planning, I can share that our commitment to creating MSP-friendly solutions that are both easy-to-use and efficient will not change. The combined company will be able to offer a robust platform to help solve the cybersecurity issues facing businesses. I’m excited to arm this channel with a set of tools to face the escalating threat landscape of today, and tomorrow.”

Webroot is the latest of several acquisitions for Carbonite, which has been steadily expanding beyond its roots in consumer backup for the last three years. The company bought mid-market BDR vendor Evault from Seagate Technology LLC in January 2016, and then failover and data migration service provider Double-Take Software a year later. In March of last year it completed its roughly $145.8 million purchase of cloud backup vendor Mozy Inc. from Dell Technologies.

Webroot, for its part, has been building out a portfolio of security solutions based around its SecureAnywhere Business Endpoint Protection product and sophisticated threat intelligence engine, adding a DNS security solution in February 2017 (which it extended to cover guest Wi-Fi networks a year later) and an end user education solution via its acquisition of security awareness training vendor Securecast in August 2017.