UK antivirus maker BullGuard is acquiring Israeli startup Dojo-Labs to expand its portfolio of security products to the Internet of Things. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
We covered Dojo-Labs last November, when it launched out of stealth — unwrapping a pebble-shaped consumer focused Internet of Things security device, called Dojo, designed to monitor network traffic and flag and block anomalous behavior by connected devices on the home network.
At the time the startup was aiming to ship its security gizmo in March 2016, and was taking pre-orders. Eight months on the shipping schedule has slipped — a very common story for hardware startups. But the team will now be drawing on the resources of a larger parent to get their gizmo to market by the end of the year.
“Our immediate focus is to get the Dojo product into market as soon as possible,” a spokeswoman for BullGuard told TechCrunch.
“Dojo were focused on improving the user experience and product functionality based on users’ feedback. Timeframe [for shipping the product] is by end of the year,” she added.
The spokeswoman confirmed Dojo’s founders are staying on post acquisition but added that the branding strategy isn’t fully formed as yet.
Dojo’s pebble shaped IoT gizmo and mobile messaging app UI has a rather more approachable and consumer friendly tone vs the traditional ships-in-a-rectangular-box antivirus wares that BullGuard sells, so it remains to be seen how the two tones will mesh.
“We are working on our brand strategy and positioning,” she said. “We are uniting two companies with a common vision for protecting consumers and their data and devices. This means customers will receive the highest level of protection across all of their Internet-connected devices. Most likely, we will have one brand — BullGuard.”
Last month Czech antivirus maker AVG was acquired by fellow Czech security firm Avast — in part with an eye on expanding its portfolio to offer security products for the Internet of Things.
Expect to see more security firms cutting deals to help them attack the security nightmare created by the proliferation of in-home connected devices, even as computing continues to shift away from the desktop where original antivirus empires were forged.