Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquires flash-based storage co Nimble

BENGALURU: San Jose-based Nimble Storage has been snapped up by Hewlett Packard Enterprise for $1.09 billion, making it the latest acquisition of an Indian tech company by a global giant.

Nasdaq-listed Nimble Storage, founded by Varun Mehta and Umesh Maheshwari, builds flash-based storage products and competes with the likes of NetApp and EMC.

"We believe the combination of Nimble Storage and HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) creates an industry leader in the fast-growing flash-storage market, with our InfoSight predictive analytics software providing an unmatched operational and support experience," Suresh Vasudevan, chief executive of Nimble Storage, told ET in response to an email query.


The all-cash deal marks HPE's fourth acquisition this year. California-based HPE is the world's second largest provider of external enterprise storage, with revenue of $656.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to analyst firm IDC. Earlier this year, it acquired hyper converged solution provider SimpliVity, Cloud Cruiser, a consumption-based infrastructure analytics and security analytics vendor Niara.

"Nimble builds on our strategy to make Hybrid IT simple through software defined and machine learning innovations," Antonio Neri, executive vice-president and general manager, enterprise group, HPE, wrote in a blog post.

The Nimble Storage deal underlines foreign entities' growing interest in technology companies set up by Indians. Over the past six months, the likes of Apple, Nutanix, Intel and Cisco have shopped around for companies with Indian origin, especially in areas of artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure and automation. Cisco recently snapped up Jyoti Bansal-founded AppDynamics, which helps compa nies monitor application performance, for $3.7 billion.

HPE said the acquisition will give it a full range of flash storage systems for SMB to large enterprise clients and help it better compete in the fast-growing all-flash storage market. Mehta, who has spent over two decades in the technology industry, cofounded Nimble Storage in 2008 with Maheshwari. Maheshwari is the chief technology officer at the firm and Mehta is vice-president of product.