Halifax-based Manifold has been acquired by Snyk, marking the second time in less than a decade that a company led by Jevon MacDonald has exited.

Snyk Founder Peter McKay posted a blog Tuesday saying his company – whose platform allows programmers to embed cybersecurity functions into their development process – had acquired Manifold. McKay did not reveal how much his company paid for Manifold, only that the Manifold team would now be joining the larger company.

The deal is important for the Atlantic Canadian ecosystem because Manifold’s investors include Halifax-based Build Ventures, and this is the fund’s first exit. It comes as Build is continuing to seek investors for its second fund, and the fact it has booked an exit should sit well with potential limited partners.

“We are excited to announce that Manifold has been acquired by Snyk,” said Manifold on its website. “The Manifold team will be helping accelerate the extensibility of Snyk’s platform, making it easier to build upon and automate existing developer workflows.”

The news comes as Atlantic Canada is going through a wave of IT exits, the largest of which was the US$2.8 billion purchase of St. John's-based Verafin by Nasdaq in September. In January alone, Manifold and Charlottetown-based video diplay company Screenscape Networks have announced exits.   

Manifold’s online platform gives tech companies the ability to purchase software for their computer programmers, track how much money is being spent on the software and distribute in-house programming tools. The most recent post on its website said the union with Snyk means it will close the Manifold Marketplace in April.

Manifold was founded in 2016 by a group led by Jevon MacDonald, who had previously been the Co-Founder and CEO of GoInstant. He sold that company in 2012 to San Francisco-based Salesforce, reportedly for more than US$70 million.

Whereas MacDonald raised only US$1.7 million in the first funding round by GoInstant, Manifold made a bigger splash with its Series A round in 2017, raising US$15 million, or C$18.5 million. The round was led by OMERS Ventures, of Toronto. The other institutional members were BoldStart Ventures of New York, Leaders Fund of Atlanta and Toronto, Version One Ventures of Vancouver and San Francisco, Build Ventures, and Amplify Partners of Menlo Park, Calif., as well as several angels.

The company grew to a team of about 24 people, according to LinkedIn. They will now join Snyk, which last year raised US$350 million in capital, valuing the company at US$2.6 billion. Since raising the money, Snyk has purchased not only Manifold but also the Swiss company DeepCode, a provider of real-time semantic code analysis powered by AI.

Snyk’s revenues increased 200 percent in 2020, and it now has more than 500 employees, including the Manifold team.

“The Manifold team brings tremendous platform talent and experience to Snyk, and, over the last few weeks, has already made immediate contributions to our internal teams focused on product led growth, platform extensibility/features and partner integrations,” said McKay’s blog. “Having these new snykers in place to kick off 2021 significantly accelerates our platform strategy.”