F5 takes over Volterra – a multi-cloud management startup for $500 mn

For $500 million F5, the application networking company has taken over a multi-cloud management startup - Volterra.

With this acquisition, the company is creating an edge platform built for enterprises and service providers that will be security-first and app-driven with unlimited scale.

"With Volterra, we advance our Adaptive Applications vision with an Edge 2.0 platform that solves the complex multi-cloud reality enterprise customers confront," said François Locoh-Donou, President and CEO, F5.

"Our platform will create a SaaS solution that solves our customers' biggest pain points," he added in a statement on Thursday.

The deal closed at $440 million in cash and $60 million in deferred and unvested incentive compensation.

"With our platform, we will extend F5's application security leadership to the edge, thereby expanding our combined reach in the fastest growing segment of F5's $28 billion 2023 total addressable market," said Ankur Singla, Founder and CEO of Santa Clara-based Volterra.

Upon closing of the transaction, Singla and the Volterra leadership team will join F5 in key management roles.

"When we started Volterra, multi-cloud and edge were still buzzwords and venture funding was still searching for tangible use cases," Singla said.

"Fast forward three years and Covid-19 has dramatically changed the landscape it has accelerated digitisation of physical experiences and moved more of our day-to-day activities online," he added.