Application services provider F5 agreed yesterday to acquire US-based app development technology producer Nginx for approximately $670m in a deal that will allow telecommunications firm Telstra to exit.
Nginx was founded in 2011 to market the open-source web server and application delivery software of the same name.
The company offers a premium version helping enterprises deliver content rapidly and securely, and the software is used in some 375 million websites, often for load balancing, where multiple workloads are distributed across several computing platforms.
The company’s brand will continue to exist independently post-acquisition, but its product will be strengthened by F5’s security and cloud technology.
François Locoh-Donou, F5’s president and chief executive, said: “We believe every organisation can benefit from the agility and flexibility enabled by modern technologies without compromising on security, manageability and reliability.
“The combined company will enable every customer – from the app developer to the network engineer to the security specialist – with the tools they need to ensure their apps are available and secure across every platform, from the enterprise data centre to private and public clouds.”
Nginx had received $103m in funding, $43m of which came in a June 2018 series C round led by investment bank Goldman Sachs’ Growth Equity subsidiary.
Telstra’s corporate venturing unit, Telstra Ventures, had invested in the company’s previous round, a $38m series B that closed in 2016, and which included New Enterprise Associates, E.ventures, Runa Capital, Index Ventures, MSD Capital and Aaron Levie. Its earlier backers include BV Capital.
