Marlin Equity Partners has agreed the rapid exit of cloud-based cybersecurity business AppRiver in a $275m sale to Zix Corp.
San Francisco-based buyout house True Wind Capital will provide $100m in convertible preferred equity for the deal, which comes just over a year after Marlin completed a majority investment in the business.
AppRiver serves more than 60,000 companies worldwide, with a flagship spam and virus service launched in 2002, and other cloud-based security offerings including web protection, email encryption, secure archiving and email continuity solutions.
Marlin bought into AppRiver in October 2017, and three months ago bolted-on Total Defense.
Peter Chung, principal at Marlin, said at the time of the bolt-on, “Total Defense’s endpoint protection is highly complementary to AppRiver’s existing suite of security products and we are excited to leverage these capabilities to provide a best-in-class solution to AppRiver’s global customer and partner base.
“We remain committed to driving growth through additional acquisitions that enhance AppRiver’s technology portfolio and continue to deepen the company’s value proposition to its SMB customers.”
In 2017 Marlin pulled in $3.25bn of new capital across a pair of new funds, including a $2.5bn hard cap close for its fifth flagship vehicle.
That fund targets mid-market North American and European businesses, while the $750m Heritage II vehicle is being used to seek out lower mid-market North American deals.
