In our ever-changing digital world, bad actors will always crawl out of the woodwork looking to compromise sensitive data. Helping organizations keep their applications safe is Seattle-based cybersecurity company F5 Networks. After a successful growth period, F5 is expanding with the acquisition of Lilac Cloud.
F5 develops security solutions that work to safeguard apps, APIs and infrastructure across various architectures, clouds and ecosystem integrations, according to the company. It aims to help organizations reduce risk and operational complexity while improving their app’s time to market and maximizing business potential.
“Customers are focused on minimizing their spend and optimizing their existing investments while also continuing to drive revenue,” François Locoh-Donou, F5’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “We are enabling our customers to deliver the dynamic digital experiences that drive their businesses. At the same time, we are helping them consolidate solutions and use fewer resources to manage and secure their hybrid and multi-cloud applications.”
F5 signed a definitive agreement to acquire California-based Lilac Cloud earlier this month. The financial terms of the deal were not made public.
Lilac Cloud offers cloud-based services for gaming, app downloads, event broadcasting, app security, e-learning and more.
By adding Lilac to its organization, F5 can improve its portfolio of app security and optimization tools. The team also provides F5 with ownership of the company’s intellectual property and access to Lilac’s development team. These resources will allow F5 to deliver innovative edge services more efficiently, F5 told Built In via email.
F5 added Lilac to its ranks after sampling what its tech is capable of. The company currently uses Lilac’s content delivery network (CDN) solution within its distributed cloud service offerings. Following the deal’s closing, F5 will explore opportunities to enhance the CDN and deploy the tech across its product portfolio.
In terms of how F5’s team will grow, the company said it hopes to induct most of Lilac’s 26-person workforce and plans to extend offers to a majority of them.
The acquisition follows substantial financial growth for F5. Within the first quarter of 2023, the company achieved a 2 percent increase in revenue over last year’s total. Its revenue has grown from $687 million in 2022 to $700 million. It expects to reach 9 percent to 11 percent revenue growth this year.
“At F5, we believe that applications are the most valuable asset of the modern digital enterprise. ... However, organizations are challenged by both growing complexity in their application deployments and rapidly increasing risk from cybersecurity threats,” a representative from F5 told Built In via email. “F5 is investing heavily in multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions ... [to] help customers achieve better security, improve application performance and resilience, speed app and API deployments and unify policy.”
