F5 spends US$670m to boost app and API management offerings

F5 Networks is acquiring NGINX under a definitive agreement for a total enterprise value of approximately $670 million, subject to certain adjustments.

"F5's acquisition of NGINX strengthens our growth trajectory by accelerating our software and multi-cloud transformation," says F5 president and CEO François Locoh-Donou.

"By bringing F5's world-class application security and rich application services portfolio for improving performance, availability, and management together with NGINX's leading software application delivery and API management solutions, unparalleled credibility and brand recognition in the DevOps community, and massive open source user base, we bridge the divide between NetOps and DevOps with consistent application services across an enterprise's multi-cloud environment.

F5 will integrate NGINX's current offerings into F5's security solutions and F5's cloud-native innovations with NGINX's software load balancing technology, accelerating F5's time to market of application services for modern, containerised applications.

F5 will also leverage its global sales force, channel infrastructure, and partner ecosystem to scale NGINX selling opportunities to the enterprise.

"NGINX and F5 share the same mission and vision. We both believe applications are at the heart of driving digital transformation. And we both believe that an end-to-end application infrastructure—one that spans from code to customer—is needed to deliver apps across a multi-cloud environment," says NGINX CEO Gus Robertson.

"I'm excited to continue this journey by adding the power of NGINX's open source innovation to F5's ADC leadership and enterprise reach. F5 gains depth with solutions designed for DevOps, while NGINX gains breadth with access to tens of thousands of customers and partners.

NGINX's open source community was one of the most attractive elements of this combination, and F5 recognises the trust that the user community has in NGINX's technology.

Open source is a core part of F5's multi-cloud strategy and a driver for F5's next phase of innovation.

As such, F5 is committed to continued innovation and increasing investment in the NGINX open source project to empower NGINX's widespread user communities and expects the combination with NGINX will accelerate its product integrations with leading open source projects and will enhance its strong technology partnerships with open source vendors.

Upon closing of the acquisition, F5 will maintain the NGINX brand.

Gus Robertson, along with NGINX founders Igor Sysoev and Maxim Konovalov, will join F5 and will continue to lead NGINX.

Robertson will join F5's senior management team, reporting to François Locoh-Donou.