BlackBerry sold Cylance for $160M — seven years after paying $1.4B

On 16 December 2024 BlackBerry agreed to sell Cylance, its cybersecurity business, to Arctic Wolf for $160 million in cash — about $80 million at closing and the rest a year later, plus roughly 5.5 million Arctic Wolf common shares. Seven years earlier, BlackBerry had paid $1.4 billion, all cash, for Cylance: its largest M&A deal ever, bought as a major component of the pivot from smartphones toward enterprise services.

Cylance, founded in 2015 by former McAfee and Intel staffers Stuart McClure and Ryan Permeh, struggled in an increasingly crowded sector: its AI-powered threat-analyzing software lost ground to rivals, holding just 1.3% of the endpoint-security market in 2022 per IDC. CEO John Giammatteo blamed the failure in part on the market's shift to threat detection and response products, which Cylance does not offer, and said Cylance would require significant investment to drive growth.

Cylance had become a major drain on BlackBerry's broader cybersecurity division, posting a record $51 million loss for the fiscal year ending 28 February 2025; CFO Tim Foote had said spending would be redirected from Cylance toward profitable units like secure communications. Investors approved of the exit: BlackBerry stock rose nearly 16% on the announcement day. Cylance became Arctic Wolf's sixth acquisition.

$1.24B of value destroyed: bought for $1.4B in cash in 2018, sold for $160M plus about 5.5M Arctic Wolf shares — with $80M of the cash deferred a year

Cylance kept operating as a standalone unit inside BlackBerry instead of being fused into a platform customers actually wanted.

The endpoint-security market consolidated around detection and response; a prevention-only product lost share until it was 1.3%.

A record $51 million annual loss made the unit the place spending had to be cut from, not grown.

Selling for roughly a ninth of the purchase price — with half the cash deferred — still read as a win to shareholders.

The biggest acquisition in your history needs more than a standalone logo — the market moved to detection and response, and Cylance stood still.

The deal was expected to close in BlackBerry's fiscal Q4 2025, with BlackBerry becoming a reseller of the portfolio to its government customers and an Arctic Wolf shareholder. Arctic Wolf pledged continuity for Cylance customers and an expanded endpoint solution. No integration results are reported.