Fortinet to Acquire Meru Networks for $44 Million

Network security firm Fortinet said on Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire Meru Networks (NASDAQ: MERU), a provider of enterprise wireless networking solutions, for roughly $44 million in cash.

Founded in 2002, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Meru says over 14,000 customers deploy its high-performance Wi-Fi solutions.

Fortinet says the acquisition is synergistic with its secure wireless vision and enterprise growth focus, broadens its solutions portfolio, and expands its opportunity to address the global enterprise Wi-Fi market.

“The addition of Meru’s intelligent Wi-Fi solutions to the Fortinet portfolio extends the delivery of a secure, uninterrupted user experience — anytime anywhere — providing peak performance in environments requiring high capacity load and a high-density of wireless users, such as enterprise, education, healthcare, and hospitality,” Fortinet explained.

Meru’s wireless networking solutions offer:

• Access points that deliver wireless connectivity to support data, voice, and video applications.

• Controllers to optimize wireless traffic across access points and client devices meeting mission-critical enterprise demands for wireless connectivity.

• SDN enabled Wi-Fi system software that manages and secures wired and wireless LANs, and provisions Wi-Fi enabled end-user devices.

• Cloud and virtual wireless controllers and appliances that provide choice and flexibility in deploying and scaling wireless infrastructure, whether through a data center or private cloud environment.

“The acquisition of Meru Networks maps to our overall security vision of combining strong network security with ubiquitous connectivity,” said Ken Xie, founder, chairman and CEO of Fortinet. “We expect this to accelerate our innovation through the delivery of new solutions and services to help enterprises of all sizes deploy, manage and secure wired and wireless networks in a mobile era.”

In addition to announcing the acquisition of Meru, Fortinet launched a new FortiGuard Mobile Security subscription service designed to protect mobile devices across the enterprise.

Meru has been awarded more than 33 awarded and currently has 35 pending patents, which will add to Fortinet’s more than 210 patents issued and over 165 pending patent applications.

The acquisition is expected to close during the third quarter of calendar year 2015, subject to customary closing conditions, Fortinet said.

Meru completed its initial public offering (IPO) in 2010 and has more than 300 employees worldwide. Meru reported revenue of $90.9 million in 2014.