Data Report: Announced Appdynamics sale leads M&A in January

Appdynamics, which was planning to launch an IPO, was the largest VC-backed company to sell last month.

But Cisco Systems’ $3.7 billion purchase of the application-performance-monitoring company — one of the so-called unicorns with a pre-takeover valuation above $1 billion — was announced and has not yet closed.

In all, 18 M&A deals for venture-backed companies closed last month, with two disclosing pricing: the $1.4 billion sale of Squaretrade and the $915 million purchase of ServiceMax, according to VCJ’s analysis of preliminary data from Thomson Reuters. (Download table of M&A deals below.)

UPDATE: After the preliminary data from January was updated, Thomson Reuters reported there were 24 completed VC-backed deals in January, with three disclosed prices for a combined valuation of $2.3 billion.

Cisco wasn’t the only large tech company to buy a venture-backed company last month. Hewlett-Packard announced the $650 million purchase of SimpliVity, a provider of data-center-infrastructure technology. HP also bought software developer Cloud Cruiser. Terms of that deal weren’t disclosed.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers was an investor in Appdynamics, which raised more than $314 million prior to the acquisition, and SimpliVity, which raised $263 million.

Kleiner Perkins was also an investor in two companies which completed their M&A transactions in January: ServiceMax, which raised more $203 million from investors, and Apperian, which was bought by Arxan Technologies for an undisclosed price. Apperian, which provides mobile-app-management technology, raised less than $42 million from VCs.

Download Data in Excel: VC-backed M&A, January 2017

Photo of exit sign by Alastair Goldfisher