Enterprise Weekly #440: Exits Are Back, Cisco Buys Splunk, Next NYC Nights, and More
Exits are so back.
This week, Cisco announced it’s acquiring security powerhouse Splunk for $28B in cash. This marks Cisco’s biggest acquisition to date and a strategic move for the company for a number of reasons:
Better Security Offerings: For a while, Cisco lacked a crucial element: a robust security information and event management (SIEM) system. As part of their cybersecurity buying spree, Splunk now empowers Cisco with an enhanced arsenal of analytics, which Cisco hopes will help them make better use of data spread across their broader XDR suite.
Overlapping & Sticky Customers: Cisco and Splunk have complementary products across DevOps and security, and tend to share a similar customer base — people that buy Cisco switches and networking hardware most likely have teams trained in the Splunk query language as well. We’ve seen that vendor gravity has mattered more than ever in this macroenvironment for customers as increasing “rip and replace” costs can make it more attractive to purchase products from a single vendor. As a result, this move should further cement Cisco’s overall stickiness in enterprise customers.
Splunk Has Been Suffering Lately: Splunk customers have been shifting away from the cost of their SIEM and looking for more effective options better attuned to a modern architecture. Cisco’s global brand and network distribution will likely play to Splunk’s advantage.
Additionally, we saw 3 IPOs in just 1 week with Arm, Instacart and Klaviyo all making public market debuts. While these aren’t the usual enterprise startups we track, “they're early, and lackluster, performance” signals the broader market may not be ready for a new wave of IPOs. If these are any indication, we can expect a shift in the IPO landscape from the high-growth unicorns that dominated the markets in 2020 and 2021, to more modest valuations with a renewed emphasis on profitability. We’ll keep an eye out on what’s to come 👀
🖥️ Join more events:
October 11th: Next NYC Sales Night on “Selling Through Hypergrowth” with the Head of Sales at Retool and Head of Enterprise Sales at Persona
October 12th: Next NYC Product Night on “A Decade Scaling MongoDB” with the SVP of Products at MongoDB
October 17th: Next NYC Marketing Night on “Experiments That Move the Needle” with the Head of Marketing at Mutiny and VP of Marketing at RippleMatch
📚 Read more news:
Insider: The AI Heretic
Insider: Generative AI Has Led to 'Exploding' Cybersecurity Risks Facing Everyday People, McAfee CEO Warns
WSJ: The Executive Trying to Make Microsoft Smarter About AI
Work-Bench: What Consumers Can Teach Us About The Future Of Employee Identity Management
Work-Bench: Seed Investor Models: Incentives & Biases Exposed
📚 Read more (th)reads:
Company: Cockroach Labs
Role: Senior Marketing Operations Manager
Technology: Cloud-Native SQL Database
Funding: $633M from Greenoaks, Altimeter Capital, GV, Tiger Global, Index Ventures, Benchmark, FirstMark, Redpoint, Work-Bench, and others
🌟Company of the Week🌟
Sidekick raises $4M led by Runa Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Others
Collaboration / Productivity • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Founder: Dmitry Pushkarev (CEO)
Catalyte raises $1.5M led by Green Street Impact Partners
HR Tech • Venture • Baltimore, MD
Pliable raises $2.5M led by Resolute Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Discern Security raises $3M led by BoldCap, WestWave Capital and Others
Risk / Security • Seed • Sunnyvale, CA
Tamnoon raises $5.1M led by Merlin Ventures, and Secret Chord Ventures
Risk / Security • Seed • Sammamish, WA
Betterleap raises $13M led by Andreessen Horowitz
HR Tech • Seed • San Francisco, CA
Yurts raises $16M led by Nava Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • San Francisco, CA
KYP.ai raises $18.7M led by OTB Ventures
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series A • Colone, Germany
Alcion raises $21M led by Veeam
Risk / Security • Series A • Santa Clara, CA
Tabular raises $26M led by Altimeter Capital
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • San Jose, CA
Levelpath raises $30M led by Redpoint Ventures
Future of Work • Series A • San Francisco, CA
Legit Security raises $40M led by CRV
Risk / Security • Series B • Palo Alto, CA
HiddenLayer raises $50M led by M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund, and Moore Strategic Ventures
Risk / Security • Series A • Austin, TX
MotherDuck raises $52.5M led by Felicis
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • Seattle, WA
Dragos raises $74M led by WestCap
Risk / Security • Series D • Hanover, MD
Pryon raises $100M led by U.S. Innovative Technology Fund
Data / AI / Machine Learning • Series B • Raleigh, N.C.
Writer raises $100M led by ICONIQ Growth
Productivity / Collaboration • Series B • San Francisco, CA
HiBob raises $150M led by Farallon Capital
Future of Work • Venture • Tel Aviv, Israel
Cato Networks raises $238M led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
Risk / Security • Venture • Tel Aviv, Israel
Cisco acquires Splunk for $28B
Risk / Security • Acquisition • San Francisco, CA