Cisco Systems held preliminary discussions recently with HashiCorp about an acquisition of the startup whose software manages applications running across multiple cloud providers, according to three people with direct knowledge of the talks.
The talks, which took place over a month ago, don’t appear to have advanced very far though, with one of the people saying there are currently no active discussions between the two companies about a deal. It couldn’t be learned why the discussions stalled, but the price Cisco would have to pay for HashiCorp was a likely stumbling block. The business software sector that HashiCorp is part of is a favorite of investors, with soaring valuations during private funding rounds and a string of well-received initial public offerings.
