Dive Brief:
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McAfee announced Tuesday it is now operating as a standalone cybersecurity company, marking the close of the previously announced investment by TPG and Intel Corporation to establish a pure-play cybersecurity company. McAfee was recently valued at $4.2 billion.
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Private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo is now a minority investor, according to McAfee. Intel will retain a 49% equity stake of the organization.
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Chris Young, SVP and general manager at Intel, will lead the new McAfee as Chief Executive Officer. Bryan Taylor, a TPG partner, will be chairman of the board.
Dive Insight:
Companies have struggled in the evolving cybersecurity market, and now McAfee is on its own, out from under Intel's umbrella.
Even though it will no longer have McAfee, Intel will continue to operate its own security business, according to Doug Fisher, senior vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group at Intel. Fisher outlined Intel’s revamped security strategy post-McAfee in a blog, explaining that Intel will continue to take a "hardware-based approach to better secure every layer of the compute stack."
Technology Business Research (TBR) recently predicted that the cybersecurity market will grow almost 12% over the next two years. But TBR also predicted the market will see significant shifts wherein large established vendors — including Symantec, Cisco, IBM, Check Point and Intel — will have a harder time competing against emerging vendors.
Even as its own organization, McAfee still faces a battle in the market. The company specializes in a number of security products, but as the market evolves, it may struggle to keep up with more agile competitors.
