Cisco continues push in video tech

Cisco Systems announced last week that it will acquire venture-backed BroadWare Technologies, a provider of IP-based video surveillance software, for an undisclosed price.

BroadWare, which has offices in Santa Clara, Calif., and McLean, Va., develops an online platform for recording, monitoring, managing and storing digital audio and video. The company has raised about $34 million in four rounds of funding between 2000 and 2005, according to Thomson Financial (publisher of PE Week).

Backers of BroadWare include Dali Hook Partners, Defta Partners, Hitachi, Kinetic Ventures, mc3 Ventures, New Vista Capital and Sigma Partners.

“It was a very good acquisition,” said Paul Dali, who joined the company board when he was with Dali Hook and has retained his seat as managing general partner at Keynote Ventures. He characterized Cisco’s purchase as a move by the networking giant to broaden its video security offerings.

“What they saw in the company was the fact that it had a fabulous video platform, and they could apply that technology to many of their own products to open up markets for themselves,” he said.

Cisco has been stepping up investment in digital video technologies. Earlier this year, Charles Giancarlo, senior vice president and chief development officer at Cisco, called video “perhaps the biggest opportunity on the Net overall.”

In March, Cisco agreed to acquire NeoPath Networks Inc., a Santa Clara, Calif.-based provider of network file management solutions. No financial terms were disclosed. This year, Cisco has also announced acquisitions of Utah Street Networks, Five Across Inc., Reactivity and IronPort Systems. —Joanna Glasner