Steven Mnuchin, founder and managing partner of Liberty Strategic Capital and former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, at the 2021 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S. October 19, 2021. REUTERS/David Swanson
March 28 – Liberty Strategic Capital, a Washington DC-based private equity fund founded by former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, has acquired a controlling stake in corporate security firm Zimperium for $525 million, both said on Monday to Reuters.
The deal is Liberty Strategic Capital’s first majority investment since its inception last year. It has also led late-stage funding rounds at cybersecurity companies BlueVoyant and Cybereason.
SoftBank Corp (9984.T), which has been an investor in Zimperium since 2017, will continue to operate as a minority owner.
Founded in 2010, Zimperium provides mobile security solutions for iOS, Android and Chromebooks devices. It serves companies across all industries, including financial services and healthcare, and counts JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) and the US Department of Defense among its clients.
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, the company has raised over $100 million in equity and debt financing from investors like Warburg Pincus, according to PitchBook data.
The business has grown during the pandemic, with annual recurring revenue up 53% over the past year, the company said.
“It’s been a big tailwind for us because as workers start to work more from home, they’re starting to get more of their work done on mobile devices,” said Shridhar Mittal, CEO of Zimperium.
Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs (GS.N) executive who served as Treasury Secretary during the Trump administration, will chair Zimperium’s board of directors.
Mnuchin raised $2.5 billion for Liberty Strategic Capital last year and is focused on investment opportunities in cybersecurity, payments and media.
He said he did not invest in former President Donald Trump’s new media venture Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), but instead joined the waiting list for the Truth Social app, which launched in beta last month. TMTG has been in the process of going public through its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC.O) since the transaction was announced in October.
Reporting by Krystal Hu in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr