VMware Goes On Buying Spree, Acquires Veriflow In Its Sixth Known Deal This Year

VMware has announced plans to acquire cybersecurity startup Veriflow for an undisclosed amount in its sixth known acquisition of the year so far.

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In a blog, VMware said the buy should “strengthen its capabilities in the pervasive network monitoring, troubleshooting, and verification space.” Veriflow’s product aims to help predict outages before they happen as well as “vulnerabilities before they are exploited.” Per VMware, Veriflow’s technology “provides problem detection for critical network issues (physical and virtual).”

Founded in 2013, San Jose-based Veriflow had raised $11.1 million in funding over its lifetime, according to Crunchbase data. Its last raise was a July 2016 $8.2 million Series A that was led by Menlo Ventures and also included participation from New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

As you can see in the chart below, VMware has stepped up the pace of its acquisitions over the past two years. Its recent pattern seems to be buying smaller companies with little or no venture backing. Besides Veriflow, it has also acquired or announced plans to acquire Uhana, Bitfusion.io (which had raised $8.3 million), Avi Networks, Bitnami, and AetherPal (which had raised $6 million).

It’s worth noting that products working on or adjacent to cyber security have had massive funding commitments from investors. So far this year, nearly $29 billion as been put into startups in the cyber security sector, according to Crunchbase. And as hacks become more prevalent, especially for larger brands like Capital One, founders with startups in the space likely have a number of lucrative exit opportunities.

Editor’s note: Original headline claimed Verisign, not Veriflow, was acquired by VMware. We regret the error.