(Bloomberg) -- Darktrace Plc’s Chief Executive Officer Poppy Gustafsson will leave the British cybersecurity company, handing over to current operating chief Jill Popelka to steer the business as it’s absorbed into private equity firm Thoma Bravo.
Gustafsson’s resignation is effective as of Friday, the company said in a statement. Popelka joined Darktrace in January and previously held executive positions at Snap Inc. and German software company SAP SE.
Gustafsson, 42, co-founded Darktrace more than a decade ago, initially taking a role as finance chief. The company uses artificial intelligence to learn clients’ usual work rhythms to quickly detect cyberattacks. She’d positioned the company for its initial public offering in 2021, fended off accusations from shortsellers last year and ultimately struck a deal to sell to Thoma Bravo for more than $5 billion in April.
That deal is expected to close soon after it receives its final regulatory approval, which is expected by Sept. 28, according to the statement.
Darktrace was one of the startups funded by Invoke Capital, recently deceased entrepreneur Mike Lynch’s investment firm. Lynch founded Invoke after departing his previous software company, Autonomy, and Gustafsson was one of several former Autonomy employees he backed. After his sudden death last month when his yacht sunk off the coast of Italy, Gustafsson said in a post on Linkedin, “Without Mike, there would be no Darktrace. We owe him so much.”
Lynch spent more than a decade battling fraud accusations from Hewlett Packard, which bought Autonomy in 2011 and later claimed that Lynch had overinflated its value. The legal battles dogged Darktrace, and the company cited them as a potential risk in its IPO prospectus.
Lynch died shortly after beating criminal fraud charges in the US, but had still faced a civil case in the UK. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. is pursuing damages of as much as $4 billion in the British case.
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