Exit Watch, Oct. 30, 2006

Cisco continues buying spree, pays $31M for Orative

(Nasdaq: CSCO) continued its buying spree when it announced last week that it would acquire mobile telephony software company Orative Corp. for $31 million in cash. The San Jose, Calif.-based company develops conferencing and collaboration software for mobile business users, and integrates those tools with users’ existing communications systems.

Orative had raised about $18 million in VC funding since its 2002 inception from such firms as Mayfield, Diamondhead Ventures and Trinity Ventures.

This is Cisco’s fourth acquisition in recent months. In August, Cisco paid $50 million to acquire 80% ownership of datacenter software developer Nuova Systems, and $92 million to acquire Arroyo Video Systems, a venture-backed on-demand video company. In July, Cisco bought security software vendor Meetinghouse for $43.7 million.

Digg not digging offers

Digg Inc., a San Francisco-based provider of online news/blog rating services, entered into possible acquisition talks with News Corp. and other suitors, according to TechCrunch.

An acqusition seems unlikely, however, as none of the offers supposedly reached a $150 million bottom threshold. The result is that Digg likely will seek additional VC funding. The company already has raised about $3 million from such firms as Greylock and Omidyar Network.

Earlier this month, Google’s $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube fueled the speculation over what popular Intenet company would next make headlines, prompting some in the industry to look at Digg. The company’s 29-year-old founder, Kevin Rose, is said to own about a third of the company.

Adobe acquires Serious Magic

(Nasdaq: ADBE) has acquired Serious Magic Inc., a Folsom, Calif.-based provider of video software communications tools. No financial terms were disclosed. Serious Magic had raised an undisclosed amount of VC funding from Mayfield. —PE Week staff