F5 Networks announced an agreement to acquire cloud computing startup Volterra Inc. for $440 million in cash up front and $60 million in future consideration, taking the Seattle-based application security and delivery company’s total spending on acquisitions to more than $2 billion over the past two years.
Volterra, based in Santa Clara, Calif., offers a platform for edge computing across multiple clouds, in which processing takes place near the locations of sensors and data for reduced latency. The 125-person company, founded in 2017, came out of stealth mode in November 2019. Volterra raised $50 million in funding as an independent startup from investors including Khosla Ventures, Microsoft’s M12 venture arm, Samsung NEXT Ventures and ITOCHU Technology Ventures.
It’s part of a broader transformation of F5 Networks under CEO François Locoh-Donou in recent years. F5 has been moving aggressively into software and services, expanding beyond its traditional networking hardware business. The company announced a $670 million deal for Nginx, the company behind the widely-used web and application server technology, in March 2019; and completed its $1 billion purchase of Shape Security in January of this year.
