Performanta snaps up Identity Experts

Managed security player Performanta has moved for Microsoft gold partner Identity Experts as it looks to bolster the depth of its portfolio.

The deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, comes just weeks after an investment round in Performanta from Beech Tree Private Equity.

The attraction of Identity Partners is its expertise around the Microsoft world, bringing more skills around Azure, Sentinel, O365 and IAM. The plan is for the founders of the business, Paul Green and Matt Brunton, to stay in-post and continue to drive the operation under fresh ownership.

Identity Partners has been around since 2014. It has established itself as a Microsoft gold partner and has fostered close relationships with the vendor, selling into a range of enterprise customers.

“This past year, organisations have had to cope with an unprecedented amount of change in how they do business, as well as security and identity risks associated with working outside an office perimeter,” said Guy Golan, group CEO and co-founder of Performanta. “As such, many have turned to Microsoft for all manner of services, including security.

“Together with Identity Experts, we are able to address the mounting security challenges and plug a critical gap in the market, especially among clients with a Microsoft-focused security roadmap. Though we will, of course, maintain our established footprint across the entire cyber security landscape, with Identity Experts, this will be extended to a truly broad range of services.”

Golan said Performanta was now able to pitch the business as being able to support a wide range of vendors with fully 24/7 managed services.

“Identity Experts is one of Microsoft’s key identity and security partners in the UK, and has been for many years,” said Paul Green, director of Identity Experts. “Bringing this experience and skillset into the Performanta group and being able to expand the security capabilities we can offer to our customers with Performanta’s SOC and MDR services achieves one of Identity Experts’ key strategic goals.”

Green added that becoming part of a larger group would give Identity Experts access to more IP and more services to offer to its customer base.

It has been only a matter of weeks since Performanta received the backing of Beech Tree, which typically puts between £10m and £40m into a business.

Performanta guides customers through their security strategy and provides full managed detection and response and incident response services. As well as the UK, the firm operates in South Africa, Germany, Australia and the US.

Speaking at the time of the announcement last month, Golan said: “We are looking forward to accelerating our growth so we can enable more businesses to operate in a secure environment.”