Cisco Systems is acquiring digital experience and IT monitoring platform provider ThousandEyes, the companies confirmed today.
This is M&A deal number 226 that ChannelE2E has covered so far in 2020. See the complete M&A deal list here.
The deal aligns well with Cisco's networking and AppDynamics business -- which competes with DataDog, Dynatrace, New Relic, SolarWinds and other IT monitoring software providers. Moreover, ThousandEyes' recurring revenue software model aligns with Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins' business transformation efforts.
ThousandEyes and Cisco are longstanding business partners. At the Cisco Live conference in 2018, ThousandEyes touted the need for multi-cloud network visibility and digital intelligence to help organizations monitor cloud-to-cloud, Internet-to-cloud and inter-region connections.
ThousandEyes Business Growth, Customer Reach
ThousandEyes' total customer contractual commitments surpassed $100 million in fiscal year 2020, growing almost 80 percent year-over-year, the company said in March 2020. Moreover, multi-year customer commitments accounted for over half of fiscal year ARR (annual recurring revenue) as SaaS, cloud and SD-WAN adoption continued to skyrocket, the company said at the time.
ThousandEyes' customer base includes:
- More than 80 Fortune 500 and 150 Global 2000 customers.
- Six of the top 7 US banks.
- Twenty of the top 25 global SaaS companies.
Explaining ThousandEye's business strategy back in March 2020, CEO Mohit Lad said:
"We built this company from the ground up knowing that the cloud would become the new data center, the Internet the new network, and SaaS the new application stack, and the incredible customer demand, partner momentum and industry recognition we've seen shows that the market agrees. I'm beyond proud of what the team's accomplished over the past year, especially as we celebrate this significant milestone, but I'm even more excited about what's in store in terms of strategic partnerships, additional product innovation, and the initiatives we have in place to make ThousandEyes an even more exceptional workplace where employees can do their best work."
Cisco Acquiring ThousandEyes: Executive Perspectives
In a prepared statement about the deal, Todd Nightingale, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Enterprise Networking and Cloud, said:
“I’m excited to welcome the ThousandEyes team to Cisco. The combination of Cisco and ThousandEyes will enable deeper and broader visibility to pin-point deficiencies and improve the network and application performance across all networks. This will give customers end-to-end visibility when accessing cloud applications, and Internet Intelligence will improve networking reliability and the overall application experience.”
The acquisition is expected to close before the end of Cisco’s Q1 FY’21. ThousandEyes will join Cisco's newly-formed Networking Services business unit, reporting to Todd Nightingale. ThousandEyes CEO Mohit Lad will transition to GM of ThousandEyes, and CTO Ricardo Oliveira will continue to drive ThousandEyes product vision and innovation strategy.
