VC deal of the week: Triple Profit and out in one year

July 7, 2005

Enterprise Partners wasn’t looking to exit its investment in networking equipment maker NetSift Inc. when Cisco Systems Inc. came calling. The venture capital group had only made one Series A funding in the company and was getting ready to do a follow on.

Those plans changed this week when Cisco bought NetSift for $30 million. The San Diego company makes promising packet processing technology to help speed the movement of data over networks, but has not yet developed any standalone products. Cisco plans to integrate the NetSift technology into its own equipment.

Enterprise managing director Tom Clancy meanwhile, tried to remain a little cagey on the swift profit the deal had netted his firm, saying only that the returns were “better than triple” its initial investment.

If only it had invested more than $3 million up front. – Andrea Orr