Morning all, Craig McGlashan filling in for Nina Lindholm with the Europe Wire. We’re delving into the world of cybersecurity this morning, an area that has been thrown into sharp relief as advances in artificial intelligence increase the capability of criminals and security providers alike. We hear from Patrick Kane, partner in Apax’s Digital team, and Stefan Dziarski, partner at Permira, about investing in the sector. Turning to take-privates, Veritas Capital’s potential take-private of heat treatment and metallurgical services provider Bodycote moved a step closer after a rival bidder dropped out. Meanwhile, Main Capital Partners has agreed with the board of the Tribal Group to up its take-private offer for the business.

Permira considers the segment an “exciting space,” Dziarski told PE Hub. “AI can do a lot of things for the good, but there’s also a lot of perpetrators that use AI for the bad,” he said. “The number of scams, such as impersonating people, is increasing rapidly. Behavioral biometrics are one way to stop those types of scams.” In August, the London-headquartered firm agreed to sell its stake in BioCatch to Visa in an all-cash deal that values the fraud-intelligence company at approximately $2.4 billion. Permira’s hold of the company was on the shorter side – it first invested in early 2023, and in 2024 the firm picked up a majority stake in the company. At initial investment, BioCatch was around a $70 million ARR business. At exit, its ARR was north of $200 million.

Under Permira’s wing, BioCatch expanded its customer base to more than 350 financial institutions worldwide and extended its capabilities into proactive fraud detection, including behavior-based mule account detection. The company also launched BioCatch Trust, a real-time inter-bank intelligence-sharing initiative for financial crime, introduced a device identification product called Device IQ, and added AI detection capabilities to its Connect 2.0 platform. By July, BioCatch was analyzing more than 19 billion digital sessions each month across 1...