Assessing a Potential Acquisition Target in the Cybersecurity Space for a B2B Growth Equity Team

Client and project overview

• A leading European B2B Growth Equity team raised a c.€400m fund to invest in fast-growing technology companies in Europe. This helped them scale and attain leadership positions in their markets
• Our client was considering entering an auction process for an investment in a French cybersecurity service provider and asked AMR (acquired by Stax in 2022) to provide pre-ex LOI support to help forge its conviction on the business’ potential

Key objectives

• For this market and industry mapping project, we provided our client with fundamental SOCaaS/MSS market understanding to support it in forging a conviction on the deal, focusing on:
• The SOCaaS/MSSP competitive environment in Europe
• The core target markets today and tomorrow in France
• The achievability of strong gross margin for a scaled SOCaaS operation

Highlights of methodology

We combined its knowledge of the cybersecurity landscape, a comprehensive desk research programme and interviews with experts to produce:

• Competitive SOCaaS mapping and assessment of provider stage of development and strategy
• Target addressable market definition and sizing by segment
• Assessment of best-in-class gross margin potential and preliminary view on achievability

Results

• Through research, we demonstrated the target had competent tech compared to rivals and the potential to address a large market with strong gross margins.