Clearswift lives up to M&A pledge with Jedda purchase

Content security vendor snaps up intellectual property of Aussie DLP specialist

Clearswift has made good on its pledge to boost its portfolio through M&A by acquiring the intellectual property rights of Australian data loss prevention (DLP) specialist Jedda Systems.

The Brit security vendor announced it was hitting the acquisition trail last November following the arrival of a new management team brought in by private-equity backers Lyceum Capital. Information governance was flagged as an area of particular interest as the vendor promised it would make targeted purchases to help it diversify from its roots in deep content inspection.

Sydney-based Jedda, which makes content-aware network DLP, appears to snuggly fill that brief.

Clearswift said Jedda's technology would allow it to offer the full gamut of network, endpoint and discovery DLP for end users of all sizes.

Jedda's wares can be used to control structured and unstructured data using pattern, keyword and fingerprinting methods, meaning it has particular relevance to the regulatory compliance and intellectual property markets, Clearswift said.

Dr Guy Bunker, senior vice president of product at Clearswift, said: "The Jedda team not only brings a great product, but also a very strong engineering team. The endpoint is a key focus area for our Information Governance cyber solutions strategy, and the Jedda technology will accelerate our plans in this space."

Kym Welsby, co-founder Jedda Systems – who will head up Clearswift's new endpoint security solutions engineering team – said: "We are really excited to be working within the Clearswift global umbrella and know that our combined knowledge and demand for product excellence will continue to create gold standard, industry leading software that provides superior security solutions to businesses around the globe."