DevOps platform provider JFrog has once again opened its wallet — this time for device security specialist Vdoo.

According to JFrog, the company entered an agreement to take over four-year-old Vdoo for approximately $300 million in cash and stock. Vdoo’s security experts and vulnerability researchers will become part of the JFrog team to “deliver a complete DevSecOps solution to secure the full software package lifecycle”.

The first step towards the goal of “providing holistic security from the development environment all the way to edges, IoT and devices” will be to enhance JFrog’s vulnerability detection tool Xray so that it is able to check configurations and applicability. Other tech the company hopes to include soon is meant to widen its offer to embedded and IoT devices, improve efficiency and accuracy, and protect systems from zero-day vulnerabilities. 

The whole move is fueled by a vision to become “the company behind all software updates”. Though the sudden surge in interest in edge computing scenarios that currently floods the cloud-native space will surely play into this as well.

Having focussed on more traditional embedded system security from the beginning, and only slowly branching out into the world of microservices and high-level languages, Vdoo extended a Series B funding in early 2021. The resulting $57M was seen as a means to broaden Vdoo’s scope into the telecommunications and smart utility space, given that demand in that area grew quite a bit in 2020.

The reason for coupling up with JFrog now seems to be mainly to increase reach, as co-founder Nati Davidi explained in a blog post accompanying the announcement.

“I believe the power and scale of JFrog will help our technology reach more organizations quicker than we could have done on our own at the same time”, Davidi wrote, after pointing out that “integrations to numerous points in the software lifecycle would be the key to further success and substantial growth.”

JFrog plans to see all of Vdoo’s capabilities integrated into its platform in 2022. Until then, Vdoo’s software-as-a-service product is expected to remain in operation. Customers should prepare to be contacted to sort out migration options once the acquisition is completed, though.