Dallas Cybersecurity Company Elisity Agrees to $1.3B Acquisition by Quantum Computing Company IonQ

Elisity CEO James Winebrenner, left, and IonQ Chairman and CEO Niccolo de Masi [Photo: Elisity, IonQ, DI Studio]

College Park, Maryland-based quantum computing company IonQ agreed to buy Dallas-based cybersecurity company Elisity in an all-stock deal valued at up to $1.3 billion.

Publicly traded IonQ said the acquisition of privately held Elisity would create a broader cybersecurity platform for detecting and combating AI and quantum threats. 

Elisity’s software improves network security by segmenting network access based on identity, content and organization-wide policies.

IonQ said it will couple Elisity’s capabilities with its own offerings for enterprise and government customers of post-quantum cryptography, or PQC; quantum key distribution, or QKD; and quantum computing. PQC and QKD defend against attacks from quantum computers. Quantum computers solve complex problems faster than traditional supercomputers.

“Our customers need to prioritize post-quantum cryptography initiatives while securing existing assets to keep essential operations running,” Elisity CEO James Winebrenner said in a statement.

An edge in microsegmentation

IonQ said the Elisity deal, expected to close later this year, would open up more opportunities in the microsegmentation market. Microsegmentation creates secure zones across cloud and data center environments to isolate app workloads from each other and individually secure them, tech giant Cisco Systems said.