(Bloomberg) -- Zscaler Inc. has acquired Israeli artificial intelligence data startup Avalor as the US-listed cloud security giant looks to advance its offering with the technology.

The Salesforce Ventures-backed startup uses AI to analyze data and look for security insights, which will be beneficial to its Zscaler’s business customers, according to Zscaler Chief Executive Officer Jay Chaudhry.

“They had some very innovative technology,” Chaudhry said in an interview. Avalor’s creative way of scouring data will help them “do security far better than the way we are doing it,” he said.

Zscaler is actively looking to make acquisitions of startups that take a new approach to security, Chaudhry said. “We don’t like to collect old companies,” he added.

Zscaler acquired Avalor in a $310 million cash-and-stock deal, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. The transaction, which closed Wednesday, provides returns to Avalor’s investors including TCV, the Menlo Park, California-based venture capital firm. 

Founded in 2021, the Ramat Gan, Israel-based Avalor has raised at least $30 million in funding, according to Pitchbook data.

Avalor’s data-focused AI business should integrate seamlessly with Zscaler, the startup’s co-founder and CEO Raanan Raz said in an interview, adding “the match was made in heaven” because Zscaler has a lot of data that would benefit from its type of analysis. 

Rather than growing Avalor into a long-term independent company, it made more sense to sell because Zscaler has the resources to help Avalor maximize its potential to scale, Raz said. In this case, “one plus one equals eleven,” he added.

About 10% of Avalor’s workforce had been called up from reserve and served in the Israeli army during the Israel-Hamas war, according to Raz. He said his workforce was resilient and “everyone covered for one another until they came back.”

Avalor is part of a wave of Israeli startup sales in recent months. Palo Alto Networks Inc., Crowdstrike Holdings Inc., and CheckPoint each bought multiple Israeli startups.

There could be more security acquisitions amid the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine wars, according to Avihai Michaeli, a partner of PwC Israel who leads corporate finance. There are increasing cyberattacks on western nations, alluding to the types of threats coming from Russia, China and Iran, he said.

“War is bad, but it’s good for the cyber business,” said Michaeli.

--With assistance from Margi Murphy.

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