Playing Koi: Palo Alto isn't saying if it will buy security start-up

Palo Alto Networks is on shopping spree. The company is reportedly considering a $400 million purchase of Israeli cybersecurity start up Koi, which raised $48 million in funding last year.

Palo Alto told The Register it does not comment on rumor and speculation. However, a person close to Palo Alto said that this is one of several rumors that have sprouted up following a visit to Tel Aviv last month by CEO Nikesh Arora.

"This is not the first guess coming out of the Israel media following that visit," said the person who was not authorized to make an official statement about the matter on behalf of the company. "I'm sure it won't be the last."

During the two-day stay, Arora met with the company's 1,600 employees there as well as the teams at CyberArk, which Palo Alto is in negotiations to acquire.

Koi offers endpoint software security and boasts that it can "Secure anything with an 'Install' button." Koi was founded by three members of the IDF's 8200 Intelligence Corps who claim it took them 30 minutes to create and publish an extension that could bypass most security environments, including those at large enterprises. Born from that was Koi, which they say "scans, governs, and monitors self-provisioned enterprise software at scale."

Palo Alto has been in the mood for M&A recently with three acquisitions announced last year.

It closed on its purchase of Protect AI in July. Protect AI's staff and technology are the cornerstone of Palo Alto's PrismaAIRS product, designed to mitigate threats posed by AI, the company said.

In July it also announced that it would buy CyberArk for $25 billion which, if it closes, would be the biggest acquisition in the company's history. During his visit to Tel Aviv, Arora reassured CyberArk employees that Palo Alto did not envision large cuts to the workforce. He said the deal was focused on CyberArk's technology and talent.

CyberArk provides identity access and monitoring and moves closer to providing a unified platform for all of a customer's cybersecurity needs.

Palo Alto is giving CyberArk shareholders $45 cash and 2.2 shares of Palo Alto stock for each CyberArk share, about a 26-percent premium for CyberArk shares at the time the deal was announced in July. It expects it to close in the second half of fiscal 2026.

In November, Palo Alto also announced the planned acquisition of Chronosphere, "a next-generation observability platform built to scale for the AI era," the company said.The company hopes that this acquisition will strengthen its ability to help organizations navigate modern applications and AI workload demand within a unified data and security foundation. ®

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Playing Koi: Palo Alto isn't saying if it will buy security start-up