The software automation technology provider has agreed to be taken over by Perforce having raised $127m from investors including Alphabet, Cisco and VMWare.

Software development tool provider Perforce agreed on Monday to acquire US-based software automation technology developer Puppet for an undisclosed sum, allowing corporates Cisco, VMWare and Alphabet to exit. Formerly known as Puppet Labs, Puppet provides a cloud-based software platform that automates parts of the software development and deployment process, letting developers update and monitor progress across physical and virtual machines. The company claims to provide services to 85% of the world’s largest banks and 80% of the top technology organisations. Perforce expects the deal to bolster its ability to help clients scale their software capabilities at a global level. Networking technology provider Cisco’s corporate venturing unit, Cisco Investments, led a $42m round for Puppet in 2018 that included virtualisation technology producer VMWare, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), True Ventures and EDBI, boosting its total funding to $127m. Four years earlier, Cisco had co-led the company’s $40m series E round with Alphabet investment vehicle GV, participating alongside VMWare, KPCB, True Ventures and Triangle Peak Partners. VMWare had invested $30m in Puppet in 2013 through a strategic partnership agreement, two years after taking part in an $8.5m series C round alongside GV, Cisco and existing backers KPCB, True Ventures and Radar Partners. Yvonne Wassenaar, Puppet’s CEO, said: “Puppet has been in the DevOps space for over 15 years with a focus on infrastructure-as-code and operators. Going forward, however, we believe enterprise customers are looking for strategic partners who can provide more breadth and depth across the entire DevOps lifecycle. Integrating Puppet into Perforce does just that. “As part of Perforce, we believe we will be better positioned to service the breadth of DevOps needs our customers have while accelerating our own innovation to ensure customers can deliver, operate and automate their infrastructures at scale in the data centre, across clouds and out to the edge. Image courtesy of Puppet.

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Fernando Moncada Rivera

Fernando Moncada Rivera is a reporter at Global Corporate Venturing and also host of the CVC Unplugged podcast.