Caesarea-based Leaba Semiconductor, a fabless semiconductor company operating in stealth mode to provide innovative solutions for significant infrastructure challenges, is being purchased by multinational technology company Cisco Systems for a reported $320 million.
“Leaba is a team with a strong and successful track record of designing leading edge networking semiconductors that provide innovative solutions to address significant infrastructure challenges,” Cisco stated on its website.
Leaba was founded in 2014 by two veteran Israeli hi tech entrepreneurs, CEO Eyal Dagan and CTO Ofer Eini (not the former head of Israel’s Histadrut trade union), whose previous venture, Dune Networks, sold in 2009 to Broadcom for $200 million. They continued to work for Broadcom after pocketing about $50 million each, and left in 2014 to start Leaba.
Fortune pointed out that Cisco, which has been breaking into cloud computing and other software-heavy areas, is now investing in new foundational hardware.
“By combining Leaba’s semiconductor expertise with the Cisco engineering team, we will accelerate our plans for Cisco’s next generation product portfolio and bring new capabilities to the market faster,” Cisco said.
The news comes one day after Cisco had purchased CliQr, a cloud management company, for $260 million.