Boss Insights - News - February 2017
HP Enterprise to acquire flash-storage company, Nimble Storage
San Jose, California - March 7th 2017 - HPE has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Nimble Storage, the San Jose, California-based provider of predictive all-flash and hybrid-flash storage solutions. HPE will pay $12.50 per share in cash, representing a net cash purchase price at closing of circa $1.0 billion. In addition to the purchase price, HPE will assume or pay out Nimble's unvested equity awards, which are worth about $200 million. HPE CEO Meg Whitman said in a statement, "This acquisition is exactly aligned with the strategy and capital allocation approach we've laid out. We remain focused on high-growth and higher-margin segments of the market." HPE is the enterprise information company formed in 2015 after splitting off from the computer and printing company Hewlett-Packard, which renamed itself HP Inc. https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/news-archive/featured-article/2017/03/Nimble-Storage-to-Extend-HPE-Industry-Leadership-in-Flash-Storage.html
Optal to Acquire B2B Payments Business Invapay for £6 Million
March 7th 2017 – London - Global business-to-business payment solutions provider and virtual card specialist Optal, has announced the acquisition of innovative payments company Invapay, in a deal which will significantly expand Optal's capabilities in the global corporate payments space. Optal CEO Rob Bishop said, "The acquisition of Invapay enables Optal to deliver a one-stop-shop for corporate B2B payables needs. Combined with our existing highly successful virtual payment solutions including virtual account numbers or VANs, Invapay completes our product offering, enabling us to offer genuine 'pay anyone, anywhere' capabilities." http://www.invapay.com/news
M-Files acquires StreamDesign
Dallas, TX - February 28, 2017: M-Files Corporation, a provider of solutions that dramatically improve how enterprises manage documents and other information, has announced the acquisition of StreamDesign, a consulting and information management services company based in France. M-Files has built a strong presence in France via the company's channel network, with StreamDesign serving as one of its most successful partners in the region. With the acquisition of StreamDesign, M-Files has established its French headquarters that will enable the company to accelerate the growth of its customer base through its growing channel partner network, as well as via direct sales and support activities. https://www.m-files.com/en/m-files-acquires-streamdesign-expands-ecm-market-france
Ephesoft Establishes Asia Pacific Office in Sydney, Australia
Sydney, Australia – March 8, 2017 – Ephesoft Inc., developers of Smart Capture® software that extracts meaning from unstructured content, have announced that the company has established a regional office in Sydney Australia to address the company’s growing business in the Australasia region. Ephesoft has also appointed Andrew Rootes as the Director of Asia, Pacific, Japan. Mr. Rootes joins Ephesoft with extensive sales and business development experience with companies including HP Enterprise Software, Kofax and EMC. http://www.ephesoft.com/ephesoft-establishes-asia-pacific-office-sydney-australia
CA to acquire Veracode for $614 million
CA Technologies, a company focused on the digital transformation of businesses, has announced that it will acquire Veracode, a Burlington, Mass.-based provider of application security solutions, for $614 million in cash. The news comes around two years after Veracode filed confidentially for an IPO, but it never followed through. Veracode has scanned over 2 trillion lines of code for hundreds of applications and focuses on digital security breaches caused by software defects. Being acquired by CA Technologies gives Veracode access to their distribution channels and a number of large companies that it may have struggled to approach and win as clients on its own. https://www.axios.com/ca-is-buying-veracode-for-614-million-2304820623.html
Palo Alto Networks completes the Acquisition of LightCyber for $105 Million
Santa Clara, Caliornia - Feb. 28, 2017 - Palo Alto Networks®, a next-generation security company, has announced its acquisition of LightCyber®, a privately held cybersecurity company that has developed award-winning, highly automated and accurate behavioral analytics technology. Under the terms of the agreement, Palo Alto Networks has acquired LightCyber for $105 million in cash. LightCyber has developed automated behavioral analytics capabilities, using sophisticated machine learning to quickly, efficiently and accurately identify attacks based on identifying behavioral anomalies inside the network. Palo Alto Networks will continue to offer the LightCyber products and support existing customer implementations while it engineers the technology into the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform by the end of the calendar year. https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/company/press/2017/palo-alto-networks-completes-acquisition-of-lightcyber
Google Ventures invests $20 million in start up Farmers Business Network
A startup called Farmers Business Network has raised $20 million in new venture funding to support the growth of its professional social network and data-sharing platform for agronomists. The FBN platform also allows farmers to upload, store and analyze data coming out of the “agtech” systems increasingly used to monitor weather, crop health, soil quality and irrigation levels in the field. These systems include drones and satellites overhead, mobile apps, sensors and cameras on the ground. Acre Venture Partners, a food and agriculture specialized fund, led the Series B round in FBN, joined by GV (formerly Google Ventures), Kleiner Perkins and DBL Partners. The new round brings the company’s total capital raised to-date to $44 million. https://www.gv.com/press/
SwiftStack to Focus on Solutions for On-Premises Transition to Hybrid Cloud
San Francisco - March 6, 2017 – SwiftStack, a company that powers hybrid cloud storage for enterprises, has announced that it has joined the Google Cloud Technology Partner Program. With this new relationship, enterprises can better use SwiftStack software to manage data placement across on-premises infrastructure and Google Cloud Platform storage services to take advantage of cloud bursting, as well as offsite archiving and collaboration with others in the cloud. SwiftStack announced product support for Google Cloud Platform on November 28, 2016. “With SwiftStack in a hybrid cloud solution, enterprises can easily leverage public cloud resources to elastically respond to business demands,” said Anders Tjernlund, COO, SwiftStack. “Collaborating with Google supports our vision for the data center, where we see enterprises taking advantage of both Google Cloud Storage and other cloud providers for agility, scale and innovation while IT uses policies to centrally manage corporate data.” https://www.swiftstack.com/about-us/news/press-releases/swiftstack-joins-google-cloud-technology-partner-program
