DigiCert Acquires Mocana

American technology company DigiCert has announced the acquisition of Mocana, a cybersecurity firm based in California.

Mocana was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale. The focus of the company is on embedded system security for industrial control systems and the internet of things (IoT).

DigiCert said the acquisition will allow it to offer an end-to-end IoT platform and provide customers with a way to manage device identity, secure connections, prevent device tampering, and update firmware and settings remotely and securely.

“IoT security has been a challenge for device manufactures and operators,” said DigiCert chief executive officer John Merrill. 

“With the addition of Mocana, DigiCert is building on its vision for delivering digital trust, a growing necessity in the IoT market as smart devices become ubiquitous in every corner of our personal and professional lives.” 

The deal was executed with the backing of Clearlake Capital Group, Crosspoint Capital, and TA Associates. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Mocana’s chief technology officer, Srinivas Kumar, said his colleagues are excited to be joining the DigiCert team.

He added: “Together, our solutions uniquely solve the challenges of IoT security, from embedding security protections on-chip or at device manufacturing to on-device secure communications and firmware updates once in the field.”    

Mocana’s list of clients includes ABB Ltd., Ciena Corp, Citrix Systems Inc., Eaton Corp. PLC, General Atomics, General Electric Company, HP Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Lenovo Group Ltd., Schneider Electric SE, Siemens AG, and VMware Inc.

Mocana hit the headlines in August 2020 when the company won a $1.5m contract to provide cybersecurity support to the United States Air Force (USAF). Under the Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract, Mocana agreed to work with USAF to deliver advanced cyber-protection for military systems, establishing end-to-end digital supply chain security.

DigiCert specializes in authorizing and issuing TLS/SSL (transport layer security/secure sockets layer) certificates, public key infrastructure (PKI), and IoT security and digital trust solutions.

Four years ago, Symantec’s SSL certificate authority was purchased by DigiCert for $950m.