Here are some of the most prominent venture capital and merger and acquisition news items from the past month. If you’d like SDxCentral to report on your company’s VC or M&A activity in our monthly Money Moves section, or if you have any tips on that activity, please send the information to Sydney Sawaya ([email protected]).

Cisco Advances Software Push With $1B ThousandEyes Buy

Cisco announced plans to acquire ThousandEyes, a multicloud network monitoring vendor based in San Francisco. The companies declined to share financial terms of the deal, but Bloomberg, which broke the news and seemingly prompted a rushed announcement, reported it was nearly $1 billion.

Cisco said it plans to integrate ThousandEyes’ capabilities across its core enterprise networking, cloud, and AppDynamics portfolios.

Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research, described it as an “outstanding” move by Cisco. “With the shift to the cloud, work from home, mobile, etcetera, it’s fair to say the internet is as big a part of a corporate network as private networks are,” he told SDxCentral.

Kerravala said he also expects it to blend with Cisco’s SD-WAN offerings, Webex, and other platforms delivered via the internet.

Microsoft Munches Metaswitch to Satiate 5G Craving

Microsoft’s appetite for 5G remains robust as the computing giant has acquired virtualized network software provider Metaswitch Networks in a move to further bolster its 5G-based networking portfolio. The deal comes less than two months after Microsoft acquired virtualized evolved packet core (vEPC) vendor Affirmed Networks.

Financial details of the deal were not released, but Metaswitch has an extensive history in the software and telecommunications space. This includes its Project Clearwater, which was the basis for the cloud-based IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) demonstration of a CloudNFV prototype.

Yousef Khalidi, corporate VP for Azure Networking at Microsoft, explained in a blog post that the deal deepens Microsoft’s move toward “working with operators as they increasingly embrace software-based solutions and continue to support the advancement of cloud-based networking while helping create new partnership opportunities for existing network equipment providers.”

Nvidia Will Buy Cumulus Networks

Nvidia unveiled its plans to acquire Cumulus Networks for an undisclosed sum in a bid to bolster the chipmaker’s presence in the networking space. While Nvidia is not disclosing financial details of the Cumulus purchase, the company expects the deal to close sometime during the second quarter of fiscal year 2020.

Nvidia claims that with Cumulus it will be able to innovate across the entire networking stack from chips and systems to software. But while the acquisition will enable tighter integration, the companies won’t be starting from scratch. Combined with Mellanox, which Nvidia bought last year for more than $6.9 billion, the chipmaker says Cumulus’ open networking platform will help to accelerate the development and adoption of the software-defined data center.

“The Cumulus acquisition, along with Mellanox, strengthens our position to reshape the modern data center to handle the exponential growth in AI [artificial intelligence] and [high-performance computing],” an Nvidia spokesperson wrote in an email to SDxCentral.

Other Money Moves

Orca Security, a startup founded last year by Check Point executives, scored a $20 million funding round to expand the reach of its multicloud visibility software.

Equinix announced a $1.25 billion proposed public offering of its common stock.

Microsoft announced it is close to reaching a deal to acquire IoT security startup CyberX for upwards of $170 million, according to Israel-based media reports.

Intel Capital announced it had invested $132 million in 11 technology startups. Joining the Intel Capital portfolio are Anodot, Astera Labs, Axonne, Hypersonix, KFBIO, Lilt, MemVerge, ProPlus Electronics, Retrace, Spectrum Materials, and Xsight Labs.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) announced plans to build an advanced chip fab in Arizona with the support of the U.S. government. The $12 billion facility will produce up to 20,000 silicon wafers per month using TSMC’s 5-nanometer manufacturing process.

DigitalOcean scored $50 million in Series C financing just months after closing a precarious $320 million debt financing that the cloud provider claimed would set it on a course toward profitability.

FeaturePeek bagged $1.8 million in seed funding from Matrix Partners and select angel investors.

Huawei invested $200 million in its cloud and general-purpose computing ecosystem this year to develop more opportunities for enterprises and developers, the company announced at its annual analyst summit in May.

Sinch AB entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the SAP Digital Interconnect group for $253 million on a cash and debt-free basis.

Open Systems acquired cybersecurity startup Born in the Cloud in a bid to bolster its emerging managed security and secure access service edge (SASE) offerings.

Semperis secured $40 million in Series B funding led by Insight Partners, bringing its total funding to $54 million.

Google scored a deal to provide cloud services for an organization within the Department of Defense (DoD) that neatly steps around the cloud giant’s previous pledge to not bid on a $10 billion Pentagon cloud contract that it said did not align with its artificial intelligence (AI) principles.

Zscaler bought Edgewise Networks for an undisclosed amount, marking the security company’s second acquisition in two months.

GigaSpaces closed a $12 million funding round led by Fortissimo Capital.

Document design and automation tool provider Qwilr secured $7.25 million in Series A financing to accelerate expansion into the U.S. and Europe, and evolve its product.

Clear Skye raised $4.95 million in Series A funding led by Toba Capital.

DartPoints, owner and operator of edge colocation data centers, secured an investment deal with Astra Capital Management, which will invest up to $40 million to support DartPoints’s expansion across North America through a buy-and-build strategy.

San Francisco-based distributed, relational, and SQL database management system company MemSQL nabbed a $50 million partnership with Hercules Capital.

ALTR announced a $15 million financing round supported by existing investors from institutional and private sources in the cybersecurity, IT, and financial services industries.

SonarSource acquired RIPS Technologies for an undisclosed amount.

FortressIQ received $30 million in Series B funding led by Microsoft’s venture fund M12 and Tiger Global Management.

AlefEdge closed a $40 million Series B funding round.

Singapore-based deep-tech company Dathena bagged $12 million in Series A funding led by Jungle Ventures.

Venafi entered a definitive agreement to acquire Jetstack, an open source machine identity protection software for Kubernetes and cloud native ecosystems.

Strapi raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Index Ventures. The new round brought the company’s total funding to $14 million.

Document creation and automation service provider Templafy will acquire Denmark-based Napp for an undisclosed amount.

Confluera secured $20 million in Series B funding led by Icon Ventures.

Dublin-based internet infrastructure company evervault closed a $16 million Series A investment round led by Index Ventures.

Couchbase completed a $105 million all-equity Series G round of fundraising led by GPI Capital.

Aqua Security received $30 Million in Series D funding led by Greenspring Associates. This investment brings Aqua’s total venture funding raised to more than $130 million.

Product intelligence provider Amplitude announced a $50 million Series E funding round led by GIC, bringing its valuation to just over $1 billion.

Intel acquired Rivet Networks, a software and cloud-based technology vendor for networking connectivity, for an undisclosed amount.

Network intelligence platform provider Kentik raised $23.5 million in growth funding led by Vistara Capital Partners. Kentik has raised $61.7 million in total funding.

Census emerged from stealth with $4.3 million in seed funding led by David Ulevitch at Andreessen Horowitz.

Gatsby announced a $28 million Series B round of funding led by Index Ventures.