MCLEAN, Va.– Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE: BAH) announced today that it had made a strategic investment in Tracepoint, a rapidly growing digital forensics and incident response company serving leading clients in the public and private sectors. The company, co-founded by Baton Rouge-based Plexos Group and several industry experts, specializes in supporting cyber insurance carriers, lawyers, brokers, and their clients through crises. The investment announced today enhances the ability of both Tracepoint and Booz Allen to defend clients against a growing number of debilitating cyber threats.
“This past year has been dominated by increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks, from the evolution of ransomware business models to a surge in attacks related to remote work,” said Bill Phelps, executive vice president and leader of the firm’s global commercial business. “Organizations must be able to detect, respond, and remediate the most consequential cyber threats to fully capitalize on the benefits of digital transformation. This investment in Tracepoint is part of our broader commitment to delivering comprehensive cyber services and solutions to ensure business resiliency for our global client base.”
This investment complements Booz Allen’s existing cybersecurity portfolio, which supports many Fortune 100 and Global 2000 clients, as well as nearly every U.S. defense and federal agency. Booz Allen’s leadership in cybersecurity continues to grow. The firm’s practice was recently ranked by Frost & Sullivan as having the largest market share in Managed and Professional Security Services in the Americas. The firm’s commercial business delivers advanced cyber services for clients across multiple industries, including financial services, health and life sciences, energy, transportation, and manufacturing.
“Both of our organizations, Tracepoint and Booz Allen, are dedicated to helping clients defend against and respond to some of today’s most sophisticated and determined cyber actors,” said Chris Salsberry, Tracepoint’s chief executive officer. “We’re excited to have Booz Allen, a recognized cybersecurity leader, as an investor and partner. Their support helps elevate and grow our incident response capabilities. As we’ve seen across client engagements, organizations must relentlessly prepare for a cyber incident to reduce their risk.”
Plexos president and CEO David Odom said of the investment, “We are extremely pleased with the tremendous growth of Tracepoint. Booz Allen’s strategic investment affirms the unique value this growing company brings to the cybersecurity industry.”
This investment follows the recent addition of Andrew Turner, the former chief security officer for Fidelity National Information Systems, as a Booz Allen executive vice president and market strategy leader in the firm’s global commercial business and marks an important step in Booz Allen’s ongoing strategy to expand the firm’s global commercial business. The deep expertise of Booz Allen practitioners is earned through real-time cyber operations, leading edge technical innovations, critical large-scale incident responses, and advanced cyber threat intelligence.
“Cybersecurity is a business-enabling function that directly affects an organization’s potential to deliver to the bottom line,” said Jerry Bessette, a Booz Allen senior vice president and leader of the firm’s commercial strategic readiness and incident response team. “Tracepoint has a proven track record of helping clients respond to attacks with resiliency and we’re proud to invest and enhance these incident response capabilities. A growing array of domestic and international cyber threats means that having tested plans in place to mitigate threats will only become more of a business imperative.”
In connection with the transaction, Booz Allen retained Goldman Sachs & Co LLC as financial advisor and King & Spalding LLP as legal advisor. Tracepoint retained Raymond James & Associates, Inc. as financial advisor and Holland & Knight, LLP as legal advisor. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.
