Zoom Acquires Keybase to Enhance Security

San Francisco – May 7, 2020 – Cooley advised Zoom Video Communications on its acquisition of Keybase, a secure messaging and file-sharing service, to accelerate Zoom’s plan to build end-to-end encryption that can reach current Zoom scalability. Anne Lieberman, Izzy Lubarsky, Jamie Leigh, Jon Avina and Calise Cheng led the Cooley team advising Zoom on the transaction.

“There are end-to-end encrypted communications platforms. There are communications platforms with easily deployable security. There are enterprise-scale communications platforms. We believe that no current platform offers all of these. This is what Zoom plans to build, giving our users security, ease of use and scale, all at once,” Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan said in a statement. “Keybase brings deep encryption and security expertise to Zoom, and we’re thrilled to welcome Max [Krohn] and his team. Bringing on a cohesive group of security engineers like this significantly advances our 90-day plan to enhance our security efforts.”

The Keybase team will provide important contributions to Zoom’s plan to proactively identify, address and enhance the security and privacy capabilities of its platform. Krohn, developer and co-founder of Keybase, will lead the Zoom security engineering team. 

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in San Jose, California, Zoom brings teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done. Its easy, reliable and innovative video-first unified communications platform provides video meetings, voice, webinars and chat across desktops, phones, mobile devices and conference room systems. Cooley advised Zoom on its $864 million initial public offering in April 2019. Its securities trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “ZM.”

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