Enterprise software provider Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) agreed to acquire US-based data management software producer Simplivity yesterday in a $650m cash deal that will give an exit to telecommunications firm Swisscom.
Simplivity has built a data virtualisation platform that uses hyperconvergence to help businesses expand simplify their data centre infrastructure while making it more secure.
HPE intends to combine Simplivity’s software with its own technology in order to supply what it described as the industry’s only ‘built-for-enterprise’ hyperconverged offering.
The purchase price represented a fall in value from Simplivity’s last funding round, a $175m series D closed in early 2015 that valued it at more than $1bn. The company had raised approximately $276m since being founded in 2009.
Waypoint Capital led the series D round, investing together with Accel, Charles River Ventures (CRV), DFJ Growth, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Meritech Capital Partners.
Swisscom’s corporate venturing subsidiary, Swisscom Ventures, first invested in Simplivity in a $58m series C round in 2013 that was co-led by KPCB Growth and DFJ Growth, and which also featured Meritech Capital, Accel and CRV.
Meg Whitman, HPE’s president and chief executive, said: “This transaction expands HPE’s software-defined capability and fits squarely within our strategy to make hybrid IT simple for customers.
“More and more customers are looking for solutions that bring them secure, highly resilient, on-premises infrastructure at cloud economics. That is exactly where we are focused.”