Mitel to Acquire Mavenir for $560M

BARCELONA -- Mobile World Congress -- Unified communications (UC) provider Mitel has announced it is acquiring Mavenir in a deal worth $560 million, just days after the VoLTE enabler announced a new push to bring voice services to the cable industry.

Mitel Networks Corp. announced the acquisition early Monday, noting that the combined companies will have a comprehensive portfolio of UC and rich communications services (RCS) to serve fixed and mobile operators. The focus of the deal is clearly on the mobile space, but Mavenir Systems Inc. is hoping to include cable companies in that fold too with a new complete voice-over-WiFi (VoWiFi) platform for cable operators wanting to take advantage of their WiFi footprints. (See Mavenir Launches VoWiFi for Cable.)

Mitel will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Mavenir common stock in a cash and stock deal valued at around $560 million.

Mavenir has just recently completed some acquisitions of its own, including the purchase of small cell security vendor Stoke in late 2014 and a $20 million acquisition of Diameter signaling vendor Ulticom in January. The company, founded in 2005, has raised $103.5 million in six funding rounds and filed for an IPO in 2013. (See Mavenir Buys Stoke for Security, Small Cell,Mavenir Spends $20M on Ulticom for Signaling and Mavenir Files for IPO.)

For Mitel, which primarily serves the enterprise with UC, the deal expands its footprint to more than 130 service providers and mobile operators, including 15 of the top 20 mobile operators worldwide. It says acquiring the VoLTE and RCS pioneer will expand its total addressable market by approximately $14 billion by 2018. (See Business Market Rediscovers Its Voice.)

Upon closing, Mavenir will become Mitel's mobile business division, operating under its own name. CEO Pardeep Kohli will join Mitel as the president of Mavenir.

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More M&A at MWC
In other, unrelated M&A news already emerging from the giant mobile show this week, test and measurement vendor Anite plc has agreed to acquire the trade and assets of wireless device application test provider Setcom Wireless Products GmbH. It says the deal will help it expand into WiFi offload, IMS and RCS-based services. (See Anite Enhances Analytics Platform and Eurobites: Bullish Anite in China LTE Project.)

Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD) also announced its intent to acquire privately held Connectm in an all-cash deal Monday. Connectm makes LTE virtual evolved packet cores, and Brocade says its vEPC will be integrated with its software and physical networking products, together providing ubiquitous connectivity between mobile and Internet of Things devices, data centers, public and private clouds. (See Brocade Intros New SDN-Enabled 'Spine' Switch and Brocade's Kelly Herrell on the New IP.)

— Sarah Thomas, , Editorial Operations Director, Light Reading