Thursday, October 20, 2011

Cisco buying BNI Video for $99M

By Kyle Alspach, Boston Business Journal

Cisco Systems Inc. will pay $99 million to acquire BNI Video, a venture-backed video software company in Boxborough, according to a release.

BNI’s customers are Internet service providers that want to deliver better web and mobile video, particularly when it comes to delivering television shows. Cisco said it hopes the addition of BNI would advance the capabilities of its “Videoscape” service, which aims to help service providers deliver high-quality video over web-connected devices.

The acquisition is the 16th in Massachusetts for Cisco, which most recently had bought Danvers-based LineSider Technologies in 2010 and paid $2.9 billion for Tewksbury-based Starent Networks in 2009.

BNI has 72 employees, Cisco said. Cisco previously reported having about 2,000 employees in Massachusetts.

Cisco had been an investor in BNI, which had raised $16 million since its founding in 2009 under the name Beaumaris Networks Inc. Other investors have included Charles River Ventures and Castile Ventures, both of Waltham, Comcast Ventures and Time Warner Investments.

Cisco said the acquisition price would consist of cash and retention-based incentives.

In October 2010, it was announced that Cisco would be an investor in the planned high-performance data center in Holyoke, committing $2.5 million of the total cost of the center.