CA Technologies bought Canadian startup Layer 7 Technologies almost two weeks ago in a deal that had an undisclosed purchase amount. That mystery has now been solved as TechVibes reports the acquisition was made for a $180 million making it one of the “largest deals for a software company in Vancouver in the past decade.” The original source of the information was reporter Gillian Shaw who has broken the news in her article for the Vancouver Sun.
Speaking about the acquisition, Layer 7 co-founder Dimitri Sirota, said that, “It’s been a 10 year overnight success. The ride hasn’t always been smooth but we are all thrilled that the hard work has resulted in a great outcome for the investors, founders and staff. CA has been a great partner to date and we expect this tighter union will help catapult the Layer 7 business to even greater heights.”
Sirota also spoke to the Vancouver Sun and said, “for a software company, it is one of the largest deals in a decade. In terms of leaving a legacy of a large expanding office here, in terms of generating wealth, in terms of generating a return on investment – by any measure it is a very successful transaction.”
Layer 7 has become an example of the success locally funded startups can achieve if they work on innovative ideas and have support from Canadian investors. Sirota and the other co-founders including Jamie Glennon, Lonny McLean and Toufic Boubez got started 11 years ago with $21 million in venture capital. The funds were provided by Vancouver based GrowthWorks, the Business Development Bank of Canada and Canadian angel investors who took a risk on the firm.
Sirota also add to the Vancouver Sun that, “One of the things we feel proud about, each of our local investors will get around $50 million each on this transaction while they’ll reinvest in the local community. A large pool of BC angel investors will do very well and a lot of employees will be millionaires. It has created wealth in BC that will be reinvested here.”
Layer 7 is an API management company and has a bright future because of the growing demand and utilization of API technology. According to Paul Rochester, the CEO of Layer 7, “The API-driven economy has exploded, driven by today’s cloud, mobile and complex composite applications for business services. With more than 8,000 public APIs available at the end of 2012, there is a vast library of proprietary components and data exposed to the external world that need to be managed and secured from unauthorized access. API applications and services are no longer a trend, they are mainstream.”
Source: TechVibes