John Chambers spearheaded one of the most aggressive M&A strategies in tech which saw Cisco gobbling up 180 companies, mostly startups. Today, the venture capital investor is helping startups become stronger and nimble competitors against bigger rivals, including tech giants.
Chambers' deep experience in M&A could be a major boon for the startups he mentors. "He actually can think around the corner for them and say, 'Well, if you were attacking me at Cisco, here's how I might respond,'" investor Mark Coopersmith told Business Insider.As CEO of Cisco, John Chambers pursued an aggressive M&A strategy that saw the tech giant gobble up 180 companies, mostly startups, over two decades.
"You either disrupt or you get disrupted," he said in an all-hands meeting with leaders and staff of Cloudleaf, a cloud supply chain platform. "You want your competitors not to change. You want to have the courage to change." Chambers biggest bets as a VC are focused on startups taking on the most dynamic markets in tech. He is a major backer of Pensando, which came out of stealth a year ago and is rolling out a new suite of edge computing software meant to challenge Amazon's dominance in the cloud. Uniphore is another major JC2 Ventures-backed startup that uses voice AI to improve customer services, while Cloudleaf is a fast-growing AI-powered supply chain management platform.
"It was basically a tacit admission that Cisco wasn't doing pioneering work. They had to acquire to stay ahead. It's what happens when a company gets really big."
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