(Bloomberg) -- Mastercard Inc. agreed to buy cyber-defense firm Recorded Future for $2.65 billion to boost its ability to protect the card company’s massive global-payments system.
The purchase from private equity firm Insight Partners will expand Mastercard’s ability to use artificial intelligence in protecting customers from cyber threats and fraud, according to a statement Thursday. Insight Partners took a controlling interest in Recorded Future in 2019 in an all-cash deal that valued the company at more than $780 million.
The deal for Recorded Future, whose earliest investors included Alphabet Inc.’s Google Ventures and In-Q-Tel, the national-security focused venture fund that was established by the US Central Intelligence Agency, is the latest in the burgeoning market for cybersecurity and risk-management technologies. Gartner Inc. estimates that market will increase 14% this year to $215 billion globally.
Recorded Future has more than 1,900 clients in 75 countries, Mastercard said in the statement, adding that cybercrime is expected to cost $9.2 trillion globally this year.
“Together we will innovate faster, create smarter models and anticipate emerging threats before cyberattacks can take place –- in payments and beyond,” Craig Vosburg, Mastercard’s chief services officer, said in the statement.
Mastercard has bolstered its global payments infrastructure and the troves of sensitive data that it processes with increased cybersecurity technology, but growing and evolving threats continue to cause trouble for the firm and across the industry.
Mastercard already uses artificial intelligence and its own tools to combat fraud, but Vosburg said in an interview that the firm has for years looked at enhancing the security of payments transactions for years, and will continue to do so.
“We looked across the space — we see them as a leader in the space,” he said, referring to Recorded Future.
Like other cybersecurity intelligence firms, Recorded Future scours the dark web for sensitive personal information, alerting its customers to what it finds. It also uses artificial intelligence to detect geopolitical and other threats. One thing that sets Recorded Future apart from other similar firms, Vosburg said, is its customer list as well as how easy to understand and actionable the firm makes data.
“By joining Mastercard, we see an opportunity to help more businesses and governments determine the steps to realize their full potential – and to enable everyone to feel safer in their daily lives,” Recorded Future Chief Executive Officer Christopher Ahlberg said in the statement.
The acquisition is expected to be completed by the first quarter of next year.
(Adds early investors in third paragraph, Vosburg’s comments starting in eighth paragraph.)
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