How Cisco is investing in startups in Asia
We were lucky enough to hang out with Dave West last week. Dave is the Cisco CTO for Systems Engineering and Architectures, Asia Pacific, Japan, and China (APJC). Yeah, we know, he’s got a long elaborate title.
But cutting to the chase, one of the main things Dave focuses on is looking at innovation and startups.
Startups are exactly where Dave focused his talk. And since it’s applicable to our members, we thought we’d take a closer look at the talk.
Since its founding in 1984, Cisco has acquired over 170 companies to date. The acquisitions spanned from areas where Cisco was weak (the Flip mini-camcorder) to areas where it was very strong (enterprise).
Here’s Dave’s slide on all of the significant acquisitions since 1993:
As you can see, Cisco’s had a healthy track record of acquiring companies. According to Dave, Cisco looks at a few key areas to determine if a startup is worth investing in. That includes:
- alignment with Cisco’s tech horizons
- the experience and expertise and cultural fit of the management team
- the organizational strength: mentors, employees, partners, and administrative concerns
- strong anchor investors that give Cisco faith in the company
- alignment with Cisco’s current portofolio
If you’d like to learn more, please feel free to contact us and we can intro you to Dave. In the meantime, enjoy our video of the event. We were happy to see such a great turnout. See you next time!