BlueCat enters agreement to acquire LiveAction to broaden its portfolio of network infrastructure management solutions

BlueCat enters agreement to acquire LiveAction to broaden its portfolio of network infrastructure management solutions

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Expanded solutions to include LiveAction’s industry-leading network observability and intelligence platform, purpose built for enterprise-grade network performance and security  

TORONTO, Oct. 03, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — BlueCat Networks, a leading provider of mission-critical network infrastructure management, automation, and security solutions, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire LiveAction, Inc., a global provider of network observability and intelligence solutions, from software investor Insight Partners. Insight Partners remains a minority investor and continues to support the combined company’s growth. Moelis & Company acted as financial advisors to LiveAction.

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LiveAction provides a leading network observability and intelligence solution that is purpose-built for complex enterprises, leveraging advanced data collection at scale to provide full visibility through a single pane of glass across the entire network.  The LiveAction solution is differentiated by its integrated flow and deep packet analysis, dynamic visualizations, precise troubleshooting, root cause analysis, rapid security forensics, and a superior set of integrations that enable both network and security teams to leverage network data across the observability stack.   Ultimately, LiveAction enables large organizations to get ahead of network performance and security issues before they impact applications, customers and business services.

BlueCat’s industry-leading DNS, DHCP and IPAM (“DDI”) solutions are the source of truth for what is on the network while automating and securing the provisioning, orchestration and configuration of foundational network services. Live Action’s fine-grain packet and flow telemetry become the ultimate source of truth for what is happening on the network–further empowering network and security teams alike. 

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“Adding LiveAction’s industry-leading network performance monitoring, packet capture and forensics offerings considerably strengthens BlueCat’s mission-critical DDI and network infrastructure management solutions,” said Stephen Devito, Chief Executive Officer at BlueCat. “Our acquisition of Indeni in 2023 (re-branded BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance) recognized that organizations need to be able to assure the health and performance of these core services as well as dependent load balancing and security devices. The acquisition of LiveAction goes a step further on this journey to provide deep insight into the network’s impact on business services, enabling organizations to isolate the source of response time issues, inform network policy and optimize network capacity.” 

“This deal allows BlueCat to support customers at every step of their journey from network modernization to optimizing and securing networks across their enterprise,” said Tripp Ateyeh, Principal at Audax Private Equity (“Audax”), which invested in BlueCat in 2022.

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LiveAction was recognized as a Mature Platform offering, Strong Challenger and Outperformer in the 2024 GigaOm Radar Report for Network Observability, which evaluates key vendors in the category. The report discusses LiveAction’s observability strategy in leveraging the network as a vantage point for conducting application and traffic analysis to extract intelligence for network and security teams.  The analyst also highlighted LiveAction’s commitment to innovation, citing machine learning and advanced analytics for automated root cause analysis as well as application usage and performance baselining that enables automatic anomaly detection and alerts.  

“We are excited as we look ahead to the next chapter in LiveAction’s growth and evolution as part of BlueCat,” said Francine Geist, Chief Executive Officer at LiveAction. “We both share a commitment to customers and continued innovation to help them harness the value of their network infrastructure.” 

“We are proud of LiveAction’s remarkable growth and leadership in the network observability and intelligence space.” “This acquisition allows BlueCat to enhance its capabilities by integrating both the breadth of LiveAction’s performance monitoring solution and the depth of its deep packet inspection functionality into the broader BlueCat portfolio,” said Philine Huizing, Principal at Insight Partners. “We look forward to seeing how this partnership will help enterprises thrive in an increasingly dynamic digital landscape.”  

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The transaction is expected to close in October, financial terms were not disclosed.  

About BlueCat  

BlueCat provides core services and solutions that help our customers, and their teams, deliver change-ready networks. With BlueCat, organizations can build reliable, secure, and agile mission-critical networks that can support network modernization initiatives such as cloud adoption, SD-WAN, SASE and automation of key network provisioning and administration tasks. BlueCat’s growing portfolio includes services and solutions for automated and unified DDI management, network security, multi-cloud management, network observability, performance management and health. BlueCat’s DDI management platform was recognized as a market leader and outperformer in GigaOm’s 2024 Radar reports. The company is headquartered in Toronto and New York and has additional offices in Germany, Iceland, Japan, Singapore, Serbia, and the United Kingdom. Learn more at bluecatnetworks.com.  

About LiveAction 

LiveAction provides unmatched visibility into network and application performance from a single pane of glass. This gives enterprises confidence that the network is meeting business objectives, offers IT administrators full visibility for better decision-making, and reduces the overall cost of operations. By unifying and simplifying the collection, correlation and presentation of network and application data, LiveAction empowers network professionals to proactively and quickly identify, troubleshoot and resolve issues across increasingly large and complex networks. To learn more and see how LiveAction delivers unmatched network visibility and security, visit https://www.liveaction.com. 

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About Audax 

Headquartered in Boston, with offices in San Francisco, New York, and London, Audax Private Equity manages three strategies: its Flagship and Origins private equity strategies, seeking control buyouts in the core middle and lower middle markets, respectively, and its Strategic Capital strategy that provides customized equity solutions to PE-backed portfolio companies to help drive continued growth. With approximately $19 billion of assets under management as of June 2024, over 270 employees, and 100-plus investment professionals, Audax has invested in more than 170 platforms and 1,300 add-on acquisitions since its founding in 1999. Through our disciplined Buy & Build approach, across six core industry verticals, Audax seeks to help portfolio companies execute organic and inorganic growth initiatives with the aim of fueling revenue expansion, optimizing operations, and significantly increasing equity value. For more information, visit www.audaxprivateequity.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

About Insight Partners  

Insight Partners is a global software investor partnering with high-growth technology, software, and Internet startup and ScaleUp companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. As of June 30, 2024, the firm has over $80B in regulatory assets under management. Insight Partners has invested in more than 800 companies worldwide and has seen over 55 portfolio companies achieve an IPO. Headquartered in New York City, Insight has offices in London, Tel Aviv, and the Bay Area. Insight’s mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with tailored, hands-on software expertise along their growth journey, from their first investment to IPO. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit insightpartners.com or follow us on X @insightpartners.  


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