Cisco In Talks To Buy Cybersecurity Startup Axonius For $2B: Report

Axonius shot down news of a potential deal with Cisco, saying that “[o]ur strategy is to build a durable, independent company.”

Cisco Systems is reportedly in advanced negotiations to acquire cybersecurity upstart Axonius for $2 billion.

New York City-based Axonius, the so-called “actionability platform for intelligent action,” was valued at $2.6 billion as of its latest funding round in 2024.

Israel-based tech news site Calcalist first reported on the potential deal on Sunday.

Axonius told CRN in a statement that the company “is not in talks to be acquired by Cisco. Our strategy is to build a durable, independent company. We are focused on execution, serving our customers, and continuing our growth. That is where our attention is.”

Cisco did not respond to CRN’s request for comment on the report prior to publication.

Axonius was founded in 2017 by three veterans of the Israel Defense Forces and offers a single, cloud-based platform for managing and securing devices connected to corporate networks. The Axonius Asset Cloud covers cyber assets, software assets, SaaS applications, identities, infrastructure, and more, for enterprise security teams, according to the company.

Should the deal come to fruition, it would mark the third security-related acquisition for Cisco in the last five months. Cisco in August revealed that it was the new owner of Aura Asset Intelligence, an asset and risk intelligence offering purpose-built as a Splunk app and developed by Discovered Intelligence, a privately held Ontario, Canada-based data observability and security specialist.

Later in November, the company announced its intention to buy enterprise AI platform company NeuralFabric Corp, a company founded in 2023 by former Microsoft engineers that has “cracked” the code on data sovereignty as a challenge to AI adoption, DJ Sampath, vice president of product, AI software and platform for Cisco, said in a blog post about the acquisition at the time.

Privately held Axonius has raised about $856 million to date, with its latest being a Series E funding round in March 2024. The company’s investors including Accel, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, according to Crunchbase.