Paragon

History

2024: AE Industrial Partners bought Paragon

On December 16, 2024, it became known that the American investment group AE Industrial Partners acquired the Israeli spy software developer Paragon. The amount of the transaction, according to available information, can be up to $900 million.

Paragon, founded in 2019 by a group of former Israeli intelligence officials and backed by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, is developing "ethically sound tools to address intractable threats." Its key spyware tool Graphite reportedly extracts data from cloud backups and can be used to infiltrate even encrypted systems such as Signal and WhatsApp.

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Freepik

Israeli media report that the deal to sell Paragon has been approved by both American and Israeli officials. Business newspaper Calcalist reports that investment group AE Industrial Partners paid $500 million for the company with a further increase in payments to $900 million, depending on what results Paragon demonstrates. The financial publication Globes speaks of an initial payment of $450 million, followed by an increase to $900 million. It is claimed that this $450 million will be divided as follows: 20% will receive about 400 Paragon employees, 30% - five co-founders of the company, and the remaining 50% - two venture funds, including Battery Ventures, based in the USA. The latter is a major investor in Paragon Solutions, Paragon's U.S. subsidiary.

The sale of Paragon is seen as part of Israeli-U.S. cooperation on cyber defense. AE Industrial Partners is expected to merge Paragon with Red Lattice, a Virginia-based cybersecurity company, after the deal is completed.

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