Barracuda Networks Acquires SKOUT Cybersecurity

Join Neal and Aidan as they share with us the acquisition and what is next.

Video Transcription

Harry Brelsford  0:07 

Hey, SMB Nation. We're on top of some breaking news and it's a brand you would recognize if you've ever been in an airport and looked around some of the airport advertising Barracuda, well known brand positive brand see it and darn near every city. How are you doing? Neil from Barracuda. doing very well. How are you?

Neal Bradbury  0:26 

Thanks for having us today. All right.

Harry Brelsford  0:28 

And Aiden from SKOUT. How are you today?

Aidan Kehoe  0:30 

How are you? Great beyond look forward to catching up here.

Harry Brelsford  0:33 

Yeah. So Aiden quickly, what is SKOUT and what's exactly going on with Barracuda?

Aidan Kehoe  0:39 

Yeah, so So a little bit of SKOUTs, the first SDR platform that was purpose built for MSPs. And, you know, we're very excited that we're after getting acquired by Barracuda, which is kind of validation of our of our mission. Interestingly enough, we've very similar values, you know, ourselves at Barracuda MSP to really help MSPs on their security journey. And really, our platform is built to integrate technology and services all backed by 24 by seven sock to make it easy for msps to sell security as a service. So that's what we do. We're excited to have this conversation with you today.

Harry Brelsford  1:17 

Absolutely. Another question. And how old is scout? I remember you kind of appeared on the scene, and now you've been acquired it wasn't that long.

Aidan Kehoe  1:26 

No, no, I mean, I got my first customer, Harry, when I was set, you know, in 2016 2017. And we launched our partner program in in firmware when MSP only and in only in 2019. And we experienced some extraordinary growth. And thanks to our MSP partners, and and now we're going to continue that growth and continue that mission with Barracuda.

Harry Brelsford  1:49 

Yep. So Neil, what is for lack of a better word? what's what's the investment thesis here? Why why the acquisition is that how, in what ways is it additive to Barracuda?

Neal Bradbury  2:00 

Absolutely, right. From my perspective, you look at what Barracuda MSP and really Barracuda as a whole in the MSP market has been doing for the last few years. It's really helping msps go down that security centric journey that Aiden was talking about. Everything that is done on MSP stack, the go to market their internal operations really needs to be looked at from a security lens. Especially as the pandemic hit last year, right, the amount of distributed workforce, everyone going remote, you saw that everyone started to kind of evaluate what they were doing, how are they were doing it with BYOD. And so for us, Barracuda has had email security, we've had Barracuda RMM. And so we've, we have a ton of tools, data protection. And so we have all these different tools that allow an MSP to have layered security solutions for that for themselves, but then also their customers to make sure that their security posture is high. But keep in mind, security is a process. It's not a product, I can just go and buy off the street. And it magically fixes all my problems, right, every minute of every hour every day of every year. There's a process that an MSP needs to go through to make sure that the security posture is high for them and their customers. And so for us, when we look at SKOUT, it allows us to take all the feeds for the security products that we have, and send them to scouts manage XDr that is backed by that 24 by seven Security Operations Center MSPs. Nowadays, we have to spend countless amounts of money to be able to build the infrastructure for the SDR but then also to staff that sock to provide that level of awareness and the speed at which they can find threats from all these different solutions. So for us, this is allowing us to upgrade an MSP security game to that next level. Again, MSPs today have a lot of solutions deployed, they might have an endpoint they really love. They might actually have an email security they love, they might have some type of Office 365 monitoring, combined with all the different Barracuda solutions that we have this can all get sent to the SKOUT xDr and monitored by this this security operations team. And then any issues or threats can get escalated back to the MSP. So for us this is that next step Harry, I guess you say how does it fit into the portfolio? This allows us to enableMSPs to be security centric, it allows them to beat make security an actual process in their business.

Harry Brelsford  4:29 

Yeah, final question. And, Neil, let you take it is what what's next. And let me give you the context. As I analyze the industry, I would argue, let's just say for the sake of argument, there's five well known platforms in the MSP community, and then there's sort of a second tier of another five. And again, up until this announcement, I would have put you in the second tier but it looks like you might be headed to becoming a platform a tier one platform competing with names you and I both know it Is that a fair assumption? Is that what's strategically going on here with Barracuda?

Neal Bradbury  5:05 

I won't take it personally. You put us in the second tier, it's okay. I think, I think separate from whether it's a tier one and us competing with us, yes, there's competition in the MSP landscape. But our angle is or our go to market is very different, right? We have an RMM that was built and acquired by a security company by another security company, and we've always had that security centric lens. So for us, it's it's really finding those msps that put security Top of Mind and want to really lead with security. And so if that leads us into the top tier from the second tier, if that leads us to get 1000s of MSPs, then, you know, absolutely, that's an awesome thing and bring it on. But for us, it's really making sure that our entire portfolio is security centric, and we enable these msps to do that when they go to market with their customers.

Harry Brelsford  6:00 

All right, and final final question. I actually forgot where Barracuda is located. I'm going to take a stab at it. I'm going to say Boston in my in my close.

Neal Bradbury  6:10 

You're You're close you're close. Oh, Barracuda networks is out of Campbell, Calif on the MSP division as a whole is very much East Coast, with offices in Canada, in Ontario, and Massachusetts and north of Boston, and then also in the New York Metro.

Harry Brelsford  6:31 

Alrighty, righty. Well, I'll be on an airplane in about a week and I'll, I'll look for your Barracuda side at the airport. Thank you gentlemen. Thanks a lot for sharing the good news. Thanks. Bye.