Darktrace CEO out as takeover deal confirmed

POPPY Gustafsson is quitting Darktrace with immediate effect just ahead of a £4.3 billion takeover of the business by US private equity firm Thoma Bravo.

Gustafasson become one of the faces of the UK tech scene when Darktrace, which specialices in cyber threat prevention, came to prominence.

It had close ties to Mike Lynch, a board member until 2018, who died recently in a yachting accident.

Gastafsson is to be replaced by her number two, chief operating officer Jill Popelka.

Gustafsson has been with Darktrace since it was founded in 2013 and oversaw the company’s stock market flotation in 2021. It now employs over 2,400 people, operates in 110 countries and serves close to 10,000 customers.

She said: “Darktrace has been a huge part of my life and my identity for over a decade and I am immensely proud of everything we have achieved in that time.”

Darktrace shares floated at 350p in April 2021, but struggled to live up that price, which once gave it a value of £7 billion.

It is being sold for £4.3 billion to a deal hungry Chicago firm which has completed tens of deals in the last few years.

Among them, Thoma Bravo bought SailPoint for $9.6 billion, Ping Identity for $2.8 billion and ForgeRock for $2.3 billion.

These were all deals in cyber security area.

Gustafsson said: “With the acquisition of Darktrace by Thoma Bravo nearing its completion and with us having identified an excellent successor in Jill, now is the right time to hand over the reins.”

Andrew Almeida, Partner at Thoma Bravo, said: "We are fully supportive of Poppy and the Board's succession plan. Jill is the perfect leader to build on Poppy's tremendous legacy at Darktrace as it embarks on this next phase of its life given her immense experience of scaling and maturing fast-growing businesses