S6|E17 Secrets of Cisco Investments feat. Rob Salvagno

Cisco’s head of Investments & M&A, Rob Salvagno, joined Cisco Champions Radio to discuss why and how Cisco invests in startups, some of the most exciting investments Cisco has made recently, some of our recent acquisitions, and how Todd Nightingale owes him two bottles of scotch. We cover Cohesity, Meraki, Kespry and more! Show Notes: • How does Cisco gets plugged into the startup community? • Cisco sees an opportunity to participate in external innovation through investing. Cisco invests (on average) around 200M+ every year. • Cisco invests at scale, up and down the stack, globally. Global approach to investment strategy as innovation happens everywhere. Cisco is currently invested in companies in about 40 countries and in about 120 companies. • Cisco invests in areas it’s in today (such as security, DC, cloud) and things that are over the horizon (such as AR, ML, Drones, etc.) to get a unique perspective on what may be happening in the future. • COHESITY: One of Cisco’s fastest growing investments. Cisco & Cohesity combined bring a lot to our customers by working with UCS and Hyperflex • How do you decide when to purchase something? Cisco invests to test out interesting new products, usually on the order of $1-5M. When Cisco acquires a company, it is because Cisco has confidence they can bring it to a wider market. • Cisco acquisitions are not one-size fits all. • Meraki is one of the most successful recent acquisitions. Saw saw they had a new approach when they were coming up with cloud management. • Todd Nightingale owes Rob 2 bottles of scotch. I recommend Lagavulin • FUN FACT: Cisco had moved out of SF right before the Meraki acquisition. Meraki was the foundation for Cisco’s resurgence in San Francisco • DRONES: For example, mining companies used drones to change their business. Cisco has invested in drone company Kespry and has created a greater solution for customers by adding drone technology to solutions. • The Cisco Investments team look for people with conviction. • Teams are asked to focus on different areas. US: Sec, Collab, Big Data, Cloud. Teams spend all day in their topic. Half the time with the startups and half the time within the BUs. • APPROACH: Cisco Investments utilizes a structured and unstructured approach. The structured approach includes the approval processes for investments and acquisitions. Cisco has also built muscle and a sense of how to meet and find investments in the many years of investing. • Cisco Investments doesn’t determine the direction of Cisco but is trying to help accelerate the innovation • SaaS: Startups have to build solutions that are most relevant to today’s business. Most of the time they are software-centric companies with subscription business models. Thus, many of the recent acquisitions have SaaS / subscription services-based business models. • LEADERSHIP: Hire the right people and set them free to do their job. • Sometimes companies approach Cisco, we usually have our eyes on people, and we get tips from other VC firms we’ve invested who value Cisco as a strategic partner. • DECIBEL: Cisco investments has been series B and up. However, Cisco also recently launched an independent investment fund for Seed & Series A opportunities, called Decibel. • Surfing: chart uncharted territory. Like investing Cisco Champions: Jeff Levensailor (http://www.twitter.com/levensailor), Cisco Champion member, Developer Engineer, Presidio. David Peñaloza (http://www.twitter.com/davidsamuelps), Cisco Champion member, Lead Network Consulting Engineer, Verizon Enterprise Solutions. Cisco Guest: Rob Salvagno (http://www.twitter.com/salvagno), VP Corporate Development and Cisco Investments. Moderator: Lauren Friedman (http://www.twitter.com/lauren), Cisco Champion Program.