Today, Mist Systems announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Juniper Networks. These two companies will be teaming up to transform how enterprises operate IT infrastructures and deliver business-critical networking services to employees, customers and users.
Over the past decade, wireless networks have become a mandatory and mission critical element of the enterprise. Mist captured the opportunity by delivering the world’s first AI-driven wireless platform, which makes Wi-Fi more predictable, reliable and measurable. The team has executed perfectly at every stage of their growth as evidenced by fanatical customer commitment. At every step of the way, the mantra was: delight the customer. And Mist did not disappoint.
We’d like to congratulate Mist’s co-founders Sujai Hajela and Bob Friday and the entire company on today’s news and the success they have achieved over the past five years. This is a great milestone for the company, and an important stepping stone towards even greater things for the Mist team.
Our relationship with the Mist team goes back a long time – all the way to Airespace. Mist co-founder Bob Friday was a co-founder of that company, and Mist’s Chairman, Brett Galloway, was the CEO. I invested in Airespace during their series A, when they shook up the WLAN space in the early 2000’s with the first WLAN controller and then eventually were acquired by Cisco in 2005. When the opportunity came to re-invest in this team again at Mist, I was well aware of their talent, drive, and vision — and I was excited to support their newest endeavor.
Since making our first investment in Mist in 2016, the company has become the WLAN of choice for many of the top retailers, e-commerce companies, corporations, hospitals and universities in the world. Customers like Dartmouth and Verizon have been impressed by Mist and trust its industry-first features such as virtual Bluetooth LE, customizable service levels, dynamic packet capture and AI-driven network assistant. Beyond building an amazing customer roster and groundbreaking AI-powered platform, Sujai and Bob have formed an all-class team and company culture. They, and the team, should certainly be proud of what they have accomplished.
Last year, Mist made the strategic decision to forge partnerships with networking and security leaders to integrate the Mist Learning WLAN with their respective solutions. One of their first partners was Juniper Networks and both teams knew right away that there was something special brewing.
We are thrilled that Mist is joining Juniper Networks and firmly believe they have found the right fit. The two companies share a common vision of “AI for IT” and are dedicated to leading the industry as it continues to transition to a new AI-driven world managed in the cloud.
Congratulations again to everyone at Mist! We look forward to seeing what you achieve next and will be cheering you on from the sidelines.
