Well Health Technologies, a publicly-traded healthtech company headquartered in Vancouver, has acquired the services division of Cycura, a Toronto-based cybersecurity startup, for approximately $2.55 million CAD.
“We believe this is a tremendous opportunity for us to increase our market share in healthcare while operating as a standalone business within Well.”
– Iain Paterson, Cycura
Following the deal, Well Health will retain Cycura’s employees and brand name, and will oversee a new business unit called Cycura Data Protection Corp. This new unit will be led by now-CEO of Cycura Iain Paterson, previously the managing director of Cycura. The startup will also continue to serve its existing customers, which operate in the healthcare space.
Well Health, which owns primary care clinics across Canada and provides electronic medical records services, said the acquisition will ensure Canadians’ highly sensitive health data is kept safe.
“We are excited to join Well who shares our belief in the importance of improving cybersecurity resilience in the healthcare and health tech sector,” said Paterson. “While Cycura will continue to serve our valued customers across a broad array of industries, we believe this is a tremendous opportunity for us to increase our market share in healthcare while operating as a standalone business within Well.”
Founded in 2013, Cycura offers both customized offensive and defensive cybersecurity solutions. Offensive cybersecurity refers to a proactive approach that can involve launching a cyberattack against adversaries to disrupt or disable their operations and to deter future attacks. Cycura’s clients include both private organizations and governments. Headquartered in Toronto, the startup also has regional offices in Sweden and Israel.
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Well Health, which is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange, has completed twelve acquisitions and three equity investments, including a $10.75 million acquisition of Kai Innovations, a $5.94 million strategic investment in Insig, and a $1 million seed investment in Phelix.ai.
“We are very excited to welcome the talented and experienced team from Cycura led by Iain and Melinda [Coultar, Cycyra’s vice president of services] and look forward to their leadership of the new Cybersecurity business unit at Well,” said Hamed Shahbazi, chairman and CEO of Well Health. “We believe this business unit will be a key leader and consolidator in the Canadian cybersecurity space with the overarching goal of helping keep private data including highly sensitive health data safe and secure.”
Image source Unsplash. Photo by National Cancer Institute.