Cybersecurity firm Sonatype acquired by Vista Equity

Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners has acquired Sonatype, a cybersecurity-focused open source automation company.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Sonatype said the acquisition will help to build out its Nexus platform, an enterprise ready repository manager and library with access to analysis on 65 million open source components. The platform helps enterprises to keep track of open source code to ensure software in the devops pipeline remains up-to-date with the latest bug and security fixes.

It's that kind of technology that Sonatype says can help prevent another Equifax-style attack, which saw close to 150 million records stolen because an open source Apache server was not kept up to date.

The company said that several existing investors will retain a stake in the company.

Sonatype, based in Fulton, MD, hasn't disclosed its financials but claims to have seen annual revenue grow up to 250% in the past three years. Its last fundraise was for $80 million in September 2018. The company also said it has more than 1,000 customers, including over than 60% of the Fortune 100 on its books, to monitor their code environments, including tech giants and several financial giants.

Vista, which invests almost exclusively in enterprise tech companies, has more than $52 billion in cumulative capital investments, it said.

Most of the Fortune 100 still use flawed software that led to the Equifax breach