Cisco Acquires Epsagon for $500M to Enhance App Monitoring

Cisco Acquires Epsagon for $500 Million

Cisco revealed on Friday its acquisition of Epsagon, an Israeli startup specializing in application monitoring. The reported acquisition price is $500 million, bolstering Cisco’s portfolio in application observability.

Confirmation of the $500 million deal came from the Israeli publication Globes, though Cisco did not independently verify the figure to TechCrunch.

Expanding Cisco’s Monitoring Capabilities

This acquisition follows Cisco’s previous investments in application monitoring, including AppDynamics, purchased in 2018 for $3.7 billion, and ThousandEyes, acquired last year for $1 billion.

Epsagon provides a means to monitor contemporary applications constructed using containers and Kubernetes. Its core strength lies in a solution designed specifically for these dynamic workloads, offering tracing and metrics that can be challenging to obtain with ephemeral containers.

A Full-Stack Observability Approach

According to a blog post by Cisco’s Liz Centoni, Epsagon enhances the company’s full-stack observability offering. The goal is to move beyond fragmented monitoring tools towards a unified system.

“Cisco’s full-stack observability approach empowers customers to transcend traditional monitoring,” Centoni stated. “It delivers shared context across teams, optimizing digital experiences, cost, security, performance, and revenue.”

The Importance of Proactive Monitoring

Application downtime can have far-reaching consequences. It impacts not only the immediate user experience but also potentially core business functions and customer satisfaction.

A robust application-monitoring system serves as an early warning system. This can prevent outages and expedite root cause analysis when issues do occur.

Integration Challenges

Cisco’s primary challenge will be seamlessly integrating Epsagon into its existing application-monitoring suite. The aim is to create a cohesive experience, avoiding a disjointed solution.

Epsagon’s Journey and Investor Returns

Founded in 2018, Epsagon had raised $30 million in funding. Reports from Calcalist indicate the company was poised for a substantial Series B funding round, with a valuation around $200 million, before accepting Cisco’s offer.

This acquisition represents a significant return for Epsagon’s early investors. The deal is anticipated to finalize later this year.