Juniper to Buy Mist Systems for $405 Million

Juniper Networks today said it will acquire wireless LAN (WLAN) startup Mist Systems for $405 million. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of this year.Juniper CEO Rami Rahim wrote in a blog post that the purchase would expand the company’s enterprise portfolio into the wireless realm and would enable it to stake claim “to AI-driven operations in the era of multi-cloud.” And in a conference call regarding the acquisition, Rahim called the purchase an “offensive move” against its networking competitors, namely Cisco and Aruba. He said that the purchase of Mist “fills a gap” in its software-defined enterprise portfolio and would enable Juniper to grow its presence in the $6 billion wireless networking market, as well as grow its campus switching portfolio. Cupertino, California-based Mist Systems was founded in 2014 by three former Cisco executives: Bob Friday, now CTO; Brett Galloway, now chairman; and Sujai Hajela, now president and CEO. To date, the startup has raised $88.4 million in three funding rounds, the most recent of which was a $46 million Series C.