Jamf, the Minneapolis-based manager of Apple devices for businesses, said late Tuesday that it is buying Wandera, a security technology company, for $400 million in cash. It is the biggest deal ever for Jamf.
Dean Hager, chief executive of Jamf, said that Wandera will help the company provide greater security capabilities to its customers, chiefly corporations that deploy Apple computers and other products.
Wandera, started in 2012 and based in San Francisco, is a rising player in a niche of the data security industry known for an approach called “zero trust.” Users in a zero-trust network must provide several forms of authentication to prove their identity before they can proceed to work.
The zero-trust approach gained attention and market share during the pandemic, when many corporate employeesworked from home and needed access to applications and data from there or other remote locations.
In a statement, Eldar Tuvey, co-founder and CEO of Wandera, said, “By combining with Jamf, we can offer our customers a truly integrated access and security platform.”
Separately, Jamf reported after stock market close Tuesday an operating loss of $2.8 million for the first quarter. That’s compared to a loss of $6.5 million in the first quarter of 2020. Total revenue in the latest quarter increased 34% to $81.2 million.
Jamf, which went public last year and is now valued around $3.7 billion, closed down 1% Tuesday in after-hours trading at $31.19 a share. The stock traded as high as $40.51 in February.