Snyk to acquire application data capture start-up

The addition of start-up Helios will help to expand Snyk’s application security posture management offering, the company says

Snyk Tuesday unveiled its acquisition of a start-up that specialises in capturing security-relevant data from live applications.

The addition of technology developed by the start-up, Helios, will bolster Snyk's capabilities around correlating code security scans with signals from runtime apps, the company said.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. CRN US has reached out to Snyk to ask how many employees will be joining from Helios.

In a news release, Snyk called the acquisition a "milestone" in the advancement of its application security posture management (ASPM) offering.

Capabilities from Helios will enable Snyk to offer comprehensive visibility across an app environment, more effective prioritisation of risk, and collection of "full-stack" runtime data, the company said in the release.

The acquisition follows Snyk's recent launch of a major update to its ASPM offering, AppRisk. The debut of Snyk's AppRisk Essentials tool provides automatic discovery of app assets that are code-based as well as management of security coverage and prioritisation based on risk, Snyk said previously.

The offering was driven by Snyk's previous acquisition of ASPM start-up Enso Security in June 2023.

In a previous interview, Snyk CEO Peter McKay told CRN US the expansion into ASPM has helped the company deliver greater visibility to application security teams, not just developers.

In the past, "we were really heavily weighted to the developer, very focused on that developer experience. In some cases, maybe we weren't focused enough on the security side," McKay said at the time.

"They needed more from us, and that's what Enso provided. So we were able to bring both of those together."

McKay added that the moves are helping to enable Snyk to make a bigger push with channel partners than the $7.4bn company has previously.

"The timing is right for us to invest more aggressively in the channel because they get it now," he said during the previous interview. "They see this need to shift left and embed developer security."