Cisco to acquire Israeli semiconductor company Laeba

Cisco Systems Inc plans to acquire Leaba Semiconductor, an Israeli company for $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 executive Rob Salvagno said in a blog post. He added, the deal would also include assumed equity awards and retention-based incentives.

The news comes after Cisco's Tuesday announcement of the acquisition of Cliqr Technologies Inc for about $260 million to enhance offerings in cloud computing management software and services. Leaba's website does not provide details about what its technology provides, but, according to the Israeli news website Ynet, it allowed for more efficient and intelligent routing of internet traffic.

Leaba was founded by Eyal Dagan and Ofer Iny, who in 2009 sold their previous chip company Dune Networks to Broadcom Corp for $178 million according to IVC Research Center. Bloomberg News cited a person familiar with the company as saying its team of 45 was highly experienced, before Cisco's confirmation of the deal.

Cisco has over 1,000 employees in Israel with many of them engaged in research and development, according to IVC.

Leaba is an early stage startup currently operating in stealth mode (a secretive mode to avoid alerting competitors) about product / business plans.

''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,'' Salvagno wrote.

He described the company as ''a team with a strong and successful track record of designing leading edge networking semiconductors'' to address network infrastructure challenges.

According to commentators, Cisco's Leaba acquisition would further accelerate the trend of mergers and consolidation in the semiconductor industry, which showed no sign of slowing down.