Exterro Acquires AccessData to Form the Leading Enterprise Legal GRC Software Platform Across Data Privacy, Forensics and e-Discovery
Author: Exterro PR
… Exterro can now provide companies, government agencies, law enforcement, law firms and legal service providers with the only solution available to address all Legal GRC and digital investigation needs in one integrated platform…
… AccessData's forensic collection, processing and analysis capabilities complement and round out Exterro's existing e-discovery, privacy, information governance, and incident and breach management solutions…
These kinds of parallel acquisitions generally happen right after a round of funding. To provide some context, Exterro was founded in 2004 and took $100M round of funding in 2018. Zoominfo has them at $36M in revenue with 170 employees (grain of salt). Founded in 1987, AccessData was one of the first forensic tools I used during my CSI years. Owler has AD’s at $150M revenue with 700 employees after $47M from three rounds of funding. Notably, AD borrowed $2M this April, hinting that they may have been hit hard by the downturn. So how and why did Exterro buy a company with overlapping products and 300%+ their revenue? The press release emphasizes AD’s forensic tools and massive law enforcement customer base while ignoring how AD eDiscovery, Summation, QBlaze, etc. effectively compete with Exterro’s eDiscovery products. You do not buy successful IP just to abandon it. I will be watching closely to see which products survive the post-acquisition honeymoon period. The move extends and deepens Exterro’s position for investigations, collections and security. With that be enough to compete in the eDiscovery Platform arena? Only time will tell.