Cisco To Acquire France-Based IoT Company Sentryo

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jun 8, 2019
  • Cisco Systems announced it has acquired a Lyon, France-based Internet of Things company called Sentryo
  • And the acquisition is expected to close before the end of Cisco’s Q1 Fiscal Year 2020 (October 26, 2019)

Cisco Systems, Inc. recently announced that it is going to acquire Sentryo — which is a Lyon, France-based Internet of Things company. The terms of the deal were undisclosed. And the acquisition — which is subject to closing conditions and regulatory approvals — is expected to close before the end of Cisco’s Q1 Fiscal Year 2020 (October 26, 2019)

Sentryo’s platform is going to be merged with Cisco’s intent-based network architecture so customers can capture IoT benefits, manage networks and devices at scale, enable collaboration across IT and OT departments, and better protect assets and data.

“Both Cisco and Sentryo recognize the unique challenges facing industrial customers and our two companies have already had the opportunity to work together,” said Rob Salvagno, the Head of Corporate Development and Investments at Cisco. “We have incorporated Sentryo’s Edge Sensor and our industrial networking hardware with Cisco’s IOx application framework. Earlier this year, Cisco launched the industry’s first integrated network architecture that extends intent-based networking capabilities to the IoT edge. We believe that connectivity is foundational to IoT projects and by unleashing the power of the network we can dramatically improve operational efficiencies and uncover new business opportunities. With the addition of Sentryo, Cisco can offer control systems engineers deeper visibility into assets to optimize, detect anomalies and secure their networks.”

Salvagno pointed out that the Internet of Things (IoT) has tremendous potential for companies to increase productivity and gain access to deep intelligence and create new revenue opportunities. But many organizations struggle with deploying IoT projects since they cannot scale to production and find it difficult to manage expanding infrastructures.

And Sentryo’s industrial IoT/OT technology solution helps energy, manufacturing, and oil and gas companies to ensure the resilience of their industrial networks and protect against cybersecurity attacks.

Sentryo was founded by CEO Thierry Rouquet and COO Laurent Hausermann. Rouquet previously created Axidia (sold to Scient) and then Arkoon Network Security (sold to Airbus). And Hausermann was previously the CTO of Arkoon (now Stormshield) and he is a teacher at the École des Mines engineering school.