Accenture Buys IoT Firm To Help Design, Build, Secure Devices

‘The focus of this acquisition is really helping our clients to build IoT and network connected devices to be secure from the manufacture,’ Steve Curtis, Global Leader for Accenture's Communications, Media, Technology & Aerospace Cybersecurity Practice tells CRN.

Accenture announced that it has acquired a Seattle-based research and consulting company focused on helping customers design, create, and test Internet of Things products so that cybersecurity is already built in.

The acquisition of Deja vu Security, which was completed this month, was folded into Accenture Security’s Cyber Defense offerings. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Our view is that we want to be able to help our clients to be as secure as possible in everything they do, and that includes being able to build secure and brilliant products, and so what we want to be able to do with the acquisition of Deja vu Security is to continue and expand our ability to help our clients secure the products that they make and that we all use every day in the market,” Steve Curtis, Global Leader for Accenture's Communications, Media, Technology & Aerospace Cybersecurity Practice, told CRN.

Deja vu was founded in 2011, and has a client list that includes some of the world’s largest tech companies, Curtis said. The acquisition is part of Accenture’s goal of “investing in and innovating” next generation cybersecurity.

“Our expectation is to really make this a center point for a broader set of service that we’re going to bring to our clients that make products and services,” he said. “Our goal is to turn this into more of an end-to-end service. Really use this as a way to expand the services that we provide.”

Curtis said the big draw for Accenture was the team Deja vu Security had in place.

“When I first met the founders of Deja vu, we had very similar, not just cultural beliefs about how to operate in the security space, but a strategic understanding of the market, and a vision of where we thought the market could go,” Curtis said. “From the point of designing securely, building securely, testing and operating securely, and what its going to take for our clients to do that at speed and scale on an international stage.”

Accenture plans to keep all of Deja vu’s personnel, Curtis said. In a statement, Adam Cecchetti, Deja vu Security’s CEO called the acquisition “an exciting new chapter” for the company.

“Accenture’s people-focused culture and innovative mindset are core values that both companies share, and our unique capabilities complement each other perfectly,” he said. “We are thrilled to be joining such a high-caliber global organization.”

Curtis said Déjà vu will increase Accenture’s capacity and ability to serve a broader array of clients. Partly thanks to Déjà vu’s headquarters in Seattle, which Curtis called an “envious geographic location” that allows the company to provide its services to customers who make IoT devices.

“If you think about the term IoT, we use that term in a broad way, but it really refers to the array of network connected devices,” Curtis said. “If you want to be able to use IoT securely, you have to not only operate it securely, deploy it securely, but also build the IoT devices themselves securely. The focus of this acquisition is really helping our clients to build IoT and network connected devices to be secure from the manufacture.”

Accenture has not slowed down its M&A train this year. Deja vu Security’s latest buy follows last week’s acquisition of Boston-based BRIDGE Energy Group , a Boston-based consulting and systems integration firm that provides grid modernization, analytics and security services to utilities in North America. Terms of that transaction were not disclosed.

According to a press release, BRIDGE serves North American electric utilities, by leveraging relationships with transmission and distribution leaders, managers and subject matter experts. That deal is expected to bolsters Accenture’s portfolio of end-to-end services for electric transmission and distribution service providers, Accenture said.