Barracuda made its name with an appliance that IT staff could plug in and forget. The Barracuda Spam Firewall sat in a closet and stopped junk mail before it reached anyone's inbox. It was priced for small and midsize businesses. By 2013 the Campbell, California company counted more than 150,000 customers in over 100 countries since its start, and it sold backup, firewalls and cloud services too.

Built for the Overworked Admin

Dean Drako, Zachary Levow and Michael Perone founded Barracuda in 2003. Their vision was to solve everyday IT problems simply and cheaply, with strong customer support. The bet was on the mainstream market that big security firms ignored. The spam firewall came first. Barracuda then added web filters, network firewalls, backup and storage, sold through thousands of partners. Francisco Partners bought a stake in the company before its offering.

A Round Trip on Wall Street

Barracuda priced its IPO at $18 a share in November 2013 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as CUDA. Its appliance business faced pressure as customers moved to the cloud, and the stock struggled. In 2017 Thoma Bravo agreed to buy Barracuda for $27.55 a share in cash, about $1.6 billion. The deal closed in February 2018. Thoma Bravo later sold the company to KKR in 2022.

Cover: A Youth Rescued from a Shark, Valentine Green. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a predator fish in the water (the barracuda).