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Cisco struck a deal to acquire Splunk for $157 per share
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The deal builds on the company's prior purchases of AppDynamics, ThousandEyes and more
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The transaction is expected to close in the second half of next year
Cisco made a major play to beef up its cybersecurity business, acquiring Splunk in a deal that values the latter at roughly $28 billion.
Founded in 2003, Splunk is a software company focused on helping enterprises plumb the depths of their data to ensure security and compliance. It boasts more than 7,500 employees across the globe and as of the end of Q2 2023 had annual recurring revenue of just under $3.9 billion. Revenue for the second quarter was $911 million, with cloud revenue up 29% to $445 million, but the company still posted a net loss of $63 million.
“The Cisco Security Cloud has visibility into vast amounts of security data — network data, identities, emails, web traffic, endpoints, and processes. With Splunk, Cisco is adding one of the world’s best data platforms to Cisco’s robust security portfolio,” CEO Chuck Robbins wrote in a blog post.
The deal is expected to close in Q3 2024. Splunk’s CEO, Gary Steele, will join Cisco’s Executive Leadership Team, reporting to Robbins.
Moor Insights and Strategy VP and principal analyst Will Townsend noted in a LinkedIn post “represents a triple-down on network observability as it leans heavily into the category through prior acquisitions including ThousandEyes (part of Cisco).”
Cisco bought ThousandEyes in 2020 to improve network visibility. That deal built on the earlier acquisition of AppDynamics for $3.7 billion in 2017, which gave Cisco beefed up application visibility tools. In 2020, Cisco also bought Dashbase to strengthen AppDynamics’ visibility across cloud and traditional environments.
Townsend added “I'm impressed with how the IT infrastructure giant continues to build an impressive full stack observability (FSO) platform. It's quickly becoming a massive differentiator to improve visibility and #networking resiliency.”