Cambridge-based cybersecurity firm eSentire announced Tuesday it has acquired Seattle-based Versive Inc., which specializes in AI-based cybersecurity technology.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, however eSentire will absorb Versive’s 50 employees and Versive executives Dustin Rigg Hillard, Ashley Fidler and Matthew Vanderzee will join eSentire’s senior leadership – Hillard as Chief Technology Officer, Fidler as Vice-President, Product, and Vanderzee as Vice-President, Engineering. Versive’s operation will remain intact in Seattle.

“The acquisition of Versive, a leading artificial intelligence technology company, is a natural progression as eSentire looks to enhance its AI and data science capabilities,” said Mike Sapien, U.S.-based Chief Analyst, Enterprise Services, with the U.K.-based technology consultancy firm Ovum. “Versive’s technology will enable eSentire to manage, respond and shut down bad actors in real time at greater scale and accuracy.”

eSentire was the pioneer of what’s known as Managed Detection and Response (MDR), which helps companies detect, contain and defeat cybersecurity threats, and is one of the sector’s fastest-growing firms. Founded in 2001, the company has 430 employees, a 40 per cent increase from August of 2017, when, according to Forbes and the Financial Post, it was the recipient of more than US$100 million from global private equity firm Warburg Pincus.

“Traditional managed security approaches and tools can’t rapidly scale to cope with the challenges of today’s business environments,” said Kerry Bailey, eSentire’s CEO. “Merging expert data scientists, engineers, and security teams and integrating the power of AI into eSentire services will result in the most advanced MDR platform delivering the scalability, automation, and speed that the modern organization demands without sacrificing quality.”

This article originally appeared in Communitech News