WhiteHat Security CRO: NTT Acquisition to Boost Expansion

WhiteHat Security wants to accelerate its expansion outside of North America once its acquisition by NTT Security gets pending regulatory approval.

That’s according to Matt Handler, WhiteHat’s chief revenue officer. Earlier this month, NTT Security, a NTT Group company, signed an agreement to acquire WhiteHat. Post-acquisition, WhiteHat will operate as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of NTT Security.

“NTT Security’s overarching goal is to provide comprehensive, game-changing cybersecurity solutions that address the broader needs of digital transformation,” said said Katsumi Nakata, NTT Security’s CEO. “WhiteHat is recognized globally as a leader and pioneer in the application security cloud services and DevSecOps spaces. By bringing WhiteHat Security into our portfolio, we are now well positioned to deliver on our vision of securing a smart and connected society by providing comprehensive security solutions for enterprises undergoing digital transformation.”  

As a result of this acquisition, NTT Security said it will provide the “world’s most comprehensive end-to-end cybersecurity solutions,” and the two organizations will work hand in hand to “address enterprise security needs that range from IT infrastructure to critical business applications, covering the full life cycle of digital transformation.”

WhiteHat Security’s Matt Handler

In a Q&A with Channel Futures, Handler talks about how the acquisition came about and what partners can expect in terms of new opportunities.

Channel Futures: How did this acquisition come about? Have the two companies worked together? Are they competitors?

Matt Handler: Sometime in 2018 after having the success and the reaction from our customer base of the WhiteHat service, we decided to go out and look for an investment, and the idea behind the investment was to add fuel to the growth that we were experiencing, and continue to build a better road map and enhance it, and accelerate some of it. So we looked at two different kinds of partners. There [are] the private equity shops out there that could potentially invest, and the strategic investors. And NTT was on the strategic investor front. We hadn’t worked with them in the past directly; however, I had some experience with them with Solutionary, which is a company that they acquired. So they reached out to us and we started working with them, and then we began talks. And from our standpoint, the idea of NTT and where they were taking their transformational journey in security within NTT Security merged very well with where we wanted to go and the type of partner we wanted in a market.

CF: How will this acquisition impact WhiteHat’s expansion plans?

MH: NTT Group, the larger entity, as well as NTT Security, have a large and diverse customer base, so from a WhiteHat perspective, this gives us an opportunity to secure a larger amount of enterprises globally. They have a very global presence where WhiteHat has been focused in North America primarily; 90 percent of our business is in the United States, and this allows us to accelerate our global reach and leverage their reach globally. So I think in the beginning … our global expansion outside of the United States is where we’re going to be focused, and then internally leveraging the size and scope of NTT. What I’m most excited about is …