CrowdStrike announced Thursday that it is buying identity management startup SGNL in a deal valued at nearly $740 million as the cybersecurity provider beefs up defenses in the age of artificial intelligence cyberattacks.

The acquisition will help users of Crowdstrike’s Falcon cloud security platform better manage human and AI identity access requests and real-time risks, the company said. The deal is expected to close in the first fiscal quarter of 2027.

“This is a massive opportunity for our customers to be able to protect themselves, and a massive opportunity for us to disrupt the identity market,” CEO George Kurtz said in an exclusive interview with CNBC.

He said the deal will help advance CrowdStrike’s foothold in the multibillion-dollar identity management business, which totaled $435 million at the end of the second quarter and has become one of the most significant attack vectors.

Companies have been bolstering identity security defenses as AI heightens the sophistication of cyberattacks.

Last year, Microsoft was hit with a wave of attacks targeting its SharePoint collaboration tool and large language model startup Anthropic disclosed the first documented AI-led cyberattack in November.

SGNL, which is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, raised $30 million in an early funding round in February. The company’s backers include Cisco Investments and Microsoft‘s Venture Fund.

The company was founded in 2021 by Scott Kriz and Erik Gustavson, whose previous startup was acquired by Google in 2017. Both founders worked at the search giant for more than four years.

Cybersecurity providers such as CrowdStrike have ramped up acquisitions in recent months to offer a fuller suite of capabilities to customers in an increasingly competitive market.

Businesses are also leaning into more autonomous agent-powered AI solutions to manage cybersecurity tools.

Last year, competitor Palo Alto Networks scooped up Israeli startup CyberArk for $25 billion in a big bet from CEO Nikesh Arora and Google landed cloud security startup Wiz for $32 billion.

In 2025, CrowdStrike announced plans to buy AI agentic security platform Pangea and Spanish data startup Onum.

Kurtz said the company’s acquisition strategy is to buy successful teams and innovative technology over legacy tools.

“We want to offer the most value to our customers where they can consolidate on CrowdStrike — less vendors, less complexities, less cost, and with a better outcome of stopping breaches,” he said.