Palo Alto Networks has confirmed plans to acquire Evident.io in a $300 million cash transaction. This is the latest in a series of acquisitions within the security industry as cloud providers, network security firms, and datacenter security companies buy cloud-focused startups.

Evident.io was founded in 2013 by Justin Lundy and Tim Prendergast, both of whom will join Palo Alto as part of the acquisition. The company's focus is on security and compliance automation and its Evident Security Platform monitors cloud deployments, assesses risk, and provides remediation guidance.

Palo Also intends to leverage Evident.io's technology to extend its API-based security capabilities, and help organizations analyze configurations and account settings to ensure cloud deployments are both secure and compliant. Its idea is to integrate both companies' tools into a single approach for monitoring, storage security, and compliance reporting.

"This acquisition is validation of the market’s need to adapt legacy IT security based on broad public cloud adoption," says Threat Stack CEO Brian Ahern. "No company is just a software company — most are also quickly becoming cloud companies."

Security companies have been shopping for cloud startups as more businesses transfer their applications to the public cloud. Legacy security solutions don't accommodate cloud environments, an issue driving consolidation among security providers.

Other major companies ramping up their cloud offerings through acquisitions include Trend Micro, which bought application security firm Immunio in November 2017, and McAfee, which acquired Skyhigh Networks the same month. VMware snapped up VeloCloud Networks in December. Oracle confirmed plans to purchase Zenedge in February 2018.

Read more details on the Palo Alto/Evident.io merger here.

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