Avast Buys Piriform, the Company behind the CCleaner Optimization Tool
Piriform, the London-based company that’s best known for its very useful CCleaner cleaning utility and optimization tool, has been acquired by Avast, the Czech security company that bought AVG for $1.3 billion about a year ago.
Now that Avast has bought Piriform, the latter will become part of Avast’s consumer business unit which is led by Ondrej Vlcek, Avast CTO and EVP & GM, Consumer. Avast says that it will not shut down CCleaner and promises to maintain all of Piriform’s products and give Piriform customers the attention and service they’re used to.
Why would Avast buy CCleaner?
Piriform’s flagship product has a userbase of more than 130 million people, 15 million of which being Android users. As you might already know, CCleaner has been downloaded more than 2 billion times since launch, keeps on scoring around 20 million downloads per month, and it is installed on around 5 million desktops every week.
All these big numbers make CCleaner a very enticing buy. Not only is Avast buying a properly good cleaning and optimization tool with more than 130 million users, it’s also getting to broaden its presence in London.
"The CCleaner brand fits very well to Avast, for various reasons," said Vince Steckler, CEO of Avast. "We both believe in high-quality free products. People won’t just use a product because it is free. It’s quite the opposite, if you are providing a free product, you need to convince people that your product is free, but not cheap. You need to provide a pretty damn good product so people will use it and recommend it to their family and friends. Like Avast, Piriform provides a fully functioning product for free, with some excellent premium features on top, like disk defragmenting, file recovery, and hardware inventory."
What will happen to CCleaner?
With Avast having acquired Piriform, the first question that comes to mind is... What will happen to CCleaner (and all other products that Piriform has to offer)? The answer to this question comes from Piriform CEO Lindsey Whelan, who says that Avast will not discontinue CCleaner.
"Avast will maintain and support CCleaner separately from its current Avast optimization portfolio and will continue to give our customers the attention and service they are accustomed to," said Whelan.
Avast CEO Vince Steckler had the same thing to say about CCleaner’s future. "We will maintain the Piriform products separately from our current Avast optimization portfolio, and Piriform customers can rest assured they will continue to get the attention and service they are used to. Our existing performance optimization products, Avast Cleanup and AVG TuneUp, will remain available," said Steckler.
What is Avast getting out of this acquisition?
As mentioned above, Avast is expanding its presence in London and it’s getting CCleaner and its 130 million userbase. But since Piriform has a few other products to offer, Avast is also getting:
How much did Avast pay for Piriform?
Since the terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed, we do not know how much Avast paid for Piriform.
Last year, when Avast acquired AVG, it was more than happy to disclose the fact that it paid $25 per share or about $1.3 billion in total. This year, Avast did not share this bit of information with the public.
Now that Avast has bought Piriform, the latter will become part of Avast’s consumer business unit which is led by Ondrej Vlcek, Avast CTO and EVP & GM, Consumer. Avast says that it will not shut down CCleaner and promises to maintain all of Piriform’s products and give Piriform customers the attention and service they’re used to.
Why would Avast buy CCleaner?
Piriform’s flagship product has a userbase of more than 130 million people, 15 million of which being Android users. As you might already know, CCleaner has been downloaded more than 2 billion times since launch, keeps on scoring around 20 million downloads per month, and it is installed on around 5 million desktops every week.
All these big numbers make CCleaner a very enticing buy. Not only is Avast buying a properly good cleaning and optimization tool with more than 130 million users, it’s also getting to broaden its presence in London.
"The CCleaner brand fits very well to Avast, for various reasons," said Vince Steckler, CEO of Avast. "We both believe in high-quality free products. People won’t just use a product because it is free. It’s quite the opposite, if you are providing a free product, you need to convince people that your product is free, but not cheap. You need to provide a pretty damn good product so people will use it and recommend it to their family and friends. Like Avast, Piriform provides a fully functioning product for free, with some excellent premium features on top, like disk defragmenting, file recovery, and hardware inventory."
What will happen to CCleaner?
With Avast having acquired Piriform, the first question that comes to mind is... What will happen to CCleaner (and all other products that Piriform has to offer)? The answer to this question comes from Piriform CEO Lindsey Whelan, who says that Avast will not discontinue CCleaner.
"Avast will maintain and support CCleaner separately from its current Avast optimization portfolio and will continue to give our customers the attention and service they are accustomed to," said Whelan.
Avast CEO Vince Steckler had the same thing to say about CCleaner’s future. "We will maintain the Piriform products separately from our current Avast optimization portfolio, and Piriform customers can rest assured they will continue to get the attention and service they are used to. Our existing performance optimization products, Avast Cleanup and AVG TuneUp, will remain available," said Steckler.
What is Avast getting out of this acquisition?
As mentioned above, Avast is expanding its presence in London and it’s getting CCleaner and its 130 million userbase. But since Piriform has a few other products to offer, Avast is also getting:
- Recuva – a data recovery tool that can recover deleted files and securely delete files.
- Speccy – a system information tool that tells you what’s under your PC’s hood.
- Defraggler – an easy to use defragmentation tool.
- CCleaner Cloud – remotely monitor and optimize a single or multiple computer.
How much did Avast pay for Piriform?
Since the terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed, we do not know how much Avast paid for Piriform.
Last year, when Avast acquired AVG, it was more than happy to disclose the fact that it paid $25 per share or about $1.3 billion in total. This year, Avast did not share this bit of information with the public.
