Sophos was founded by Jan Hruska and Peter Lammer and began producing its first antivirus and encryption products in 1985. During the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Sophos primarily developed and sold a range of security technologies in the UK, including encryption tools available for most users. In the late 1990s, Sophos concentrated its efforts on the development and sale of antivirus technology, and embarked on a program of international expansion. In 2003, Sophos acquired ActiveState, a North American software company that developed anti-spam software. At that time viruses were being spread primarily through email spam and this allowed Sophos to produce a combined anti-spam and antivirus solution. In 2006, Peter Gyenes and Steve Munford were named chairman and CEO of Sophos, respectively. Jan Hruska and Peter Lammer remain as members of the board of directors. In 2010, the majority interest of Sophos was sold to Apax. In 2010, Nick Bray, formerly Group CFO at Micro Focus International, was named CFO of Sophos. In 2011, Utimaco Safeware AG were accused of supplying data monitoring and tracking software to partners that have sold to governments such as Syria: Sophos issued a statement of apology and confirmed that they had suspended their relationship with the partners in question and launched an investigation. In 2012, Kris Hagerman, formerly CEO at Corel Corporation, was named CEO of Sophos and joined the company's board. Former CEO Steve Munford became non-executive chairman of the board. In February 2014, Sophos announced that it had acquired Cyberoam Technologies, a provider of network security products. In June 2015, Sophos announced plans to raise $US100 million on the London Stock Exchange. Sophos was floated on the FTSE in September 2015 On October 14, 2019, Sophos announced that Thoma Bravo, a US-based private equity firm, made an offer to acquire Sophos for $7.40 USD per share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $3.9 billion. The board of directors of Sophos stated their intention to unanimously recommend the offer to the company’s shareholders. On March 2 2020, Sophos announced the completion of the acquisition.
Acquisitions and partnerships
From September 2003 to February 2006, Sophos served as the parent company of ActiveState, a developer of programming tools for dynamic programming languages: in February 2006, ActiveState became an independent company when it was sold to Vancouver-based venture capitalist firm Pender Financial. In 2007, Sophos acquired ENDFORCE, a company based in Ohio, United States, which developed and sold security policy compliance and Network Access Control software. In July 2008, Sophos announced its intention to acquire Utimaco Safeware AG. In July 2009, Sophos completed integration of Utimaco Safeware AG. In May 2010, Sophos reached a definitive agreement to sell a majority interest in the company to Apax Partners, a global private equity group. In May 2011, Sophos announced it had entered into an agreement to acquire Astaro, a privately held provider of network security solutions, headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts, United States; and Karlsruhe, Germany. In 2012, Sophos acquired what remained of VirusBuster – a Hungarian antivirus firm – after the company had closed. In April 2012, Sophos acquired DIALOGS, a privately held provider of mobile management solutions headquartered in Germany. In February 2014, Sophos announced that it had acquired Cyberoam Technologies, a network security company. In October 2014, Sophos acquired Mojave Networks, a leading cloud-based security startup. On 14 December 2015, Sophos acquired SurfRight, a small Dutch company behind HitmanPro to strengthen their endpoint protection products. In November 2016, Sophos acquired Barricade, a pioneering start-up with a powerful behavior-based analytics engine built on machine learning techniques, to strengthen synchronized security capabilities and next-generation network and endpoint protection. In February 2017, Sophos acquired Invincea, a software company that provides malware threat detection, prevention, and pre-breach forensic intelligence. In March 2020, Thoma Bravo acquired Sophos for $3.9 billion.
