Contact: Ben Kolada Scott Denne
Fiberlink Communications has been constantly evolving since its launch more than two decades ago. The company found its sweet spot in fast-growing, cloud-based mobile device management software, which has led to its sale to IBM.
Founded in 1991, Fiberlink spent most of its life building a VPN services business that it hoped would eventually hit $100m in sales, but its top line began to shrink as customers viewed those services as commodity. About six years ago, it began offering additional services for IT administrators to monitor and control mobile usage, eventually pivoting the company into the cloud-based enterprise mobile management business it has today.
According to sources, the pivot paid off handsomely – revenue for the cloud product, which launched in 2011, grew to account for about 40% of the $50m in sales the company generated last year. Fiberlink raised at least $84m in venture funding. Deutsche Bank Securities advised Fiberlink on its lengthy sale process (we first heard the company was for sale a year ago).
For IBM, the deal is the latest in a string of mobile acquisitions panning sectors from application development to fraud prevention. The purchase of Fiberlink gives Big Blue a SaaS-based service to complement its on-premises BigFix endpoint management software and a single offering for managing mobile devices and applications.
IBM’s most recent mobile deals
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Source: The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase
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