Avast plc (LON:AVST) and Smith Micro Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMSI) have announced a definitive agreement under which Smith Micro will acquire Avast’s Family Safety Mobile Business. The acquisition encompasses Avast’s portfolio of mobile parental controls services including location features, content filtering and screen time management, and will cement Smith Micro as a market leader in delivering family mobile software solutions to the carrier industry.
“Acquiring the Family Safety Mobile Business from Avast will present a significant opportunity for Smith Micro to transform the global market for carrier-grade digital family mobile software,” said William W. Smith, Jr., President and CEO of Smith Micro Software. “The acquisition will create one of the leading family safety software solutions providers for wireless carriers and will blend two highly experienced and talented development teams.”
With this acquisition, Smith Micro intends to further expand its white-label digital safety solutions, strengthening its position as a leading family safety software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider on a global basis while allowing Smith Micro to add critical headcount in the U.S. and Europe. Avast will retain its carrier IoT security and in-home protection services, such as those provisioned through the Avast Smart Life platform and the award-winning Avast Omni product, and continue to serve its existing non-family customer base with these solutions.
“Forecasts indicate there will be 24.1 billion active IoT devices by 20301 so we see great potential for our core digital security solutions as people’s lives become increasingly connected,” said Nick Viney, Senior Vice President, Avast Partner. “This agreement gives Avast’s Partner team the opportunity to focus on building out our priority cybersecurity and privacy offerings and to expand into new vertical markets as well as the telecommunications space by partnering with Smith Micro to deliver our products and services to their customers as well as ours.”
The deal is expected to close mid-April 2021. Under the terms of the agreement, Smith Micro will pay $66 million, subject to a potential additional earn-out upon certain performance criteria being satisfied. At the same time, both parties intend to enter a preferred partner arrangement in which they will collaborate to respond to future carrier tenders which require both family mobile safety and IoT or digital security services.
“Just as important, the intended go-forward collaboration both parties will gain as a result of the deal will combine Smith Micro’s expertise in providing mobile family safety solutions to wireless carriers with Avast’s expertise in consumer cybersecurity and digital privacy,” Smith continued. “This strategic partnership represents definitive growth potential for both businesses as we would be positioned to combine our complementary solution portfolios and coordinate our sales and marketing efforts to further penetrate wireless carrier accounts on a global scale.”
1 The Internet of Things (IoT) Market 2019 – 2030, Transforma Insights
