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Barracuda Networks: The Maynard Street R&D Anchor in the Old Borders HQ

Barracuda Networks' largest R&D office outside California sits at 317 Maynard Street, the 45,000 sq ft former Borders HQ in downtown Ann Arbor.

A2Hub Editorial· Rusty Roof Media· Updated May 4, 2026

Barracuda Networks

By A2Hub Editorial. Published 2026-04-22. Last updated: 2026-04-22.

At a glance

  • Founded: 2003 (Campbell, California)
  • Founders: Dean Drako, Michael Perone, Zach Levow
  • Ann Arbor R&D address: 317 Maynard Street, downtown Ann Arbor
  • Ann Arbor footprint: ~45,000 sq ft (former Borders Group HQ), leased June 2012
  • Ann Arbor headcount: ~180+ historically; current figure not publicly disclosed under KKR ownership
  • Status: Privately held, owned by KKR since August 2022
  • Global HQ: Campbell, California
  • Website: barracuda.com

The 45,000 sq ft cybersecurity anchor that filled the Borders hole

Barracuda Networks is one of the few global cybersecurity companies that operates a major R&D center in Ann Arbor without being headquartered here. The company's primary headquarters is in Campbell, California, but its largest R&D footprint outside the Bay Area is the downtown Ann Arbor office at 317 Maynard Street. That office is the same 45,000 square foot building that served as the headquarters of Borders Group, the bookseller that went bankrupt in 2011 and left a hole in downtown Ann Arbor that Barracuda filled in June 2012.

For the Ann Arbor cybersecurity cluster, Barracuda's presence matters for two reasons. First, it brought several hundred engineering jobs into downtown at exactly the moment the post-Borders downtown was looking for an anchor tenant. Second, it added a second major security-engineering culture to a downtown that already had Arbor Networks and would soon have Duo Security, Censys, and Blumira.

Founding story: Campbell, California, 2003

Barracuda Networks was founded in 2003 in Campbell, California by Dean Drako, Michael Perone, and Zach Levow. The original product was the Barracuda Spam Firewall, a hardware appliance for filtering email spam at the network edge. The thesis was straightforward: enterprise email was overrun with spam, the existing solutions were either expensive enterprise software or unreliable open source, and a turnkey appliance at a mid-market price point could win the underserved middle of the market.

That thesis was right. Barracuda grew quickly through the mid-2000s, expanded into network and application security, web application firewalls, backup, and eventually email security as a service. It went public on the NYSE in 2013, was taken private by Thoma Bravo in 2018 at approximately $1.6B, and was sold again in August 2022 to KKR.

The Ann Arbor office is not part of the founding story. It is part of the post-2011 expansion story. Barracuda needed a major engineering site outside the Bay Area to scale R&D, and Ann Arbor offered a U-M engineering pipeline, a recently vacated 45,000 sq ft downtown office space (Borders' bankruptcy had emptied the building), and a cost basis dramatically below California's. The June 2012 lease decision was one of the formative moments in modern Ann Arbor downtown commercial real estate.

What they build

Barracuda's product portfolio spans four broad areas, all of which receive engineering work out of Ann Arbor:

Email protection. Barracuda Email Protection, including Email Gateway Defense and Impersonation Protection. The company is one of the larger email security providers in the SMB and mid-market segment and has expanded its email security capabilities through KKR-era acquisitions.

Network and application security. Barracuda CloudGen Firewall (next-gen firewall), Barracuda Web Application Firewall, and the Application Protection portfolio. Web application firewall and API protection have been growth areas as more customers move workloads to cloud and edge architectures.

Data protection. Backup and data protection products including Barracuda Backup and SecureEdge.

Managed XDR. Barracuda's managed extended detection and response service, expanded substantially under KKR ownership as the security operations center (SOC) services market has grown.

The Ann Arbor R&D center has historically been positioned as Barracuda's largest engineering site outside California, with engineering work spanning multiple product lines. The site is engineering-heavy rather than sales or executive in profile, which fits the Ann Arbor talent base that Barracuda was specifically recruiting.

Funding and growth

Barracuda has been through three ownership cycles:

  • Public (2013-2018): IPO on NYSE in November 2013 at $18 per share.
  • Thoma Bravo era (2018-2022): Taken private by Thoma Bravo in February 2018 for approximately $1.6B in equity value, with Thoma Bravo paying roughly $27.55 per share.
  • KKR era (2022-present): KKR acquired Barracuda from Thoma Bravo in August 2022. Deal value was not publicly disclosed but was reported in the multiple billions.

Under KKR, Barracuda has continued to invest in its Managed XDR business and has rolled up several smaller security companies. Public revenue figures are no longer disclosed at the company level given Barracuda's private ownership, though press reports have placed Barracuda's annual revenue in the high hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ann Arbor footprint

Barracuda leased the 317 Maynard Street building in June 2012, less than a year after Borders Group's 2011 bankruptcy left the 45,000 square foot downtown headquarters vacant. The building is one of the larger contiguous office spaces in downtown Ann Arbor, located between Maynard and Liberty in the heart of the State Street and downtown corridors.

The Ann Arbor headcount peaked in the mid-2010s at approximately 180-plus engineers and operations staff, making it Barracuda's largest R&D center outside Silicon Valley. Current headcount post-Thoma Bravo and post-KKR is not publicly disclosed and should be considered unconfirmed at the figure level. The lease itself, and the engineering charter associated with the Ann Arbor site, has continued through both ownership transitions.

The cultural footprint extends beyond headcount. Barracuda's engineers participate in a2NewTech (the Ann Arbor New Tech Meetup) and the broader downtown security community. The Maynard Street building anchored downtown's tech tenant base alongside Duo Security's Liberty Square office during the 2012-2018 expansion era.

Why it matters for Ann Arbor tech

Barracuda's Ann Arbor presence is a case study in how a non-Ann Arbor-founded company can become structurally important to the local ecosystem. Three threads matter.

First, the symbolism of the 317 Maynard Street lease. Borders' bankruptcy was a real psychic blow to downtown Ann Arbor in 2011. Filling the building with a fast-growing security company within a year sent the opposite signal: downtown could anchor tech employers at scale. That signal reinforced the lease decisions that followed, including Duo Security's eventual move to Liberty Square.

Second, the talent pipeline. Several hundred engineers cycled through Barracuda's Ann Arbor office across the 2010s. Many of them have since moved into the broader Ann Arbor security and SaaS scene, joining or founding companies including Duo, Censys, Blumira, and others.

Third, the multi-vendor density. Ann Arbor's cybersecurity cluster is unusual in that it includes both founder-led local companies (Duo, Censys, Blumira) and major out-of-state vendors with serious R&D presence (Barracuda, Cisco via Duo, NETSCOUT via Arbor Networks). The combination is what makes the Ann Arbor security scene durable rather than dependent on any single company's fortunes.

Hiring and the engineering profile

Barracuda Ann Arbor hires across software engineering (heavily Linux, network protocol, and security engineering), security research, QA, product management, and IT operations. The Maynard Street site is engineering-heavy, with sales and corporate functions concentrated in California. Compensation is competitive for the Ann Arbor security market, with the typical Bay Area discount that defines most multi-region R&D operations. Stock is private under KKR ownership, which changes the equity component significantly compared to the 2013-2018 public era.

Work model under KKR has shifted to hybrid in line with the broader industry pattern, though specific in-office requirements vary by team and role.

Related

  • Duo Security is the Cisco-acquired Ann Arbor unicorn that anchored Liberty Square as Barracuda anchored Maynard Street, with the two companies forming the bookends of downtown's cybersecurity tenant base.
  • Arbor Networks is the U-M DDoS pioneer now operating under NETSCOUT, the third major non-local-headquartered security operator with deep Ann Arbor ties.
  • Censys is the U-M-founded internet intelligence company on Main Street that completes the downtown cybersecurity triangle with Duo and Blumira.
  • Ann Arbor cybersecurity companies is the category hub for security firms in the region.
  • Ann Arbor tech companies is the master directory.

FAQ

Where is Barracuda Networks' Ann Arbor office? Barracuda's Ann Arbor R&D office is at 317 Maynard Street in downtown Ann Arbor, in the 45,000 square foot building that previously served as the headquarters of Borders Group. Barracuda leased the building in June 2012, less than a year after Borders' 2011 bankruptcy.

Is Barracuda headquartered in Ann Arbor? No. Barracuda's primary headquarters is in Campbell, California. The Ann Arbor office is the company's largest R&D site outside California.

How many people work at Barracuda's Ann Arbor office? The Ann Arbor headcount has historically been reported in the range of 180-plus, with peaks during the 2010s expansion era. Current headcount under KKR ownership is not publicly disclosed.

Who owns Barracuda Networks? Barracuda has been owned by KKR since August 2022. KKR acquired the company from private equity firm Thoma Bravo, which had taken Barracuda private in February 2018 for approximately $1.6B.

What does Barracuda Networks do? Barracuda is a cybersecurity vendor focused on email security, network and application security, data protection (backup and SecureEdge), and managed XDR services. The company sells primarily to small and mid-market organizations, with growing presence in larger enterprises through its managed services business.

Why did Barracuda open an Ann Arbor R&D office? Barracuda needed a major engineering site outside the Bay Area to scale R&D. Ann Arbor offered a U-M engineering pipeline, a recently vacated 45,000 sq ft downtown office space (Borders' bankruptcy had emptied the building), and a cost basis substantially below California's. The June 2012 lease was one of the formative moments in modern Ann Arbor downtown commercial real estate.