Broadcom is selling application security testing business Veracode for $950 million to private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Broadcom gained Veracode as a part of its blockbuster acquisition of CA Technologies.
Broadcom (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AVGO]]) announced in June it would acquire CA Technologies (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CA]]) for $18.9 billion, and announced today it has completed that deal. New York-based CA makes software and provides services for everything from IT management to app development to cybersecurity. Back in 2017, Burlington, MA-based Veracode agreed to sell to CA Technologies for $614 million in cash. The company has been one of the stalwarts of the local cybersecurity cluster and hunts for vulnerabilities in software by scanning it throughout the development lifecycle. Now that the CA acquisition has closed, Broadcom has decided to move the Veracode business to private equity investor Thoma Bravo.
Thoma Bravo has been a long-time software investor, particularly in cybersecurity. The firm acquired then-publicly traded Blue Coat Systems in 2012 for $1.3 billion, before selling the Sunnyvale, CA-based Web security company in 2015 to Bain Capital for $2.4 billion. (Mountain View, CA-based Symantec said it would pay $4.6 billion to buy Blue Coat a year later.) Thoma also bought computer network manager SolarWinds with Silver Lake Partners in 2015 for $4.5 billion. SolarWinds raised $375 million in an initial public offering last month.
Broadcom, which moved its headquarters from Singapore to San Jose, CA, earlier this year, had an entirely different future planned. The acquisition of CA Technologies followed a failed takeover attempt by Broadcom of San Diego-based chipmaker Qualcomm, which President Trump unilaterally denied in March, citing national security concerns. The $100 billion-plus proposed acquisition would have represented the largest tech deal in history.
