Cisco is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Israeli cybersecurity startup Axonius for approximately $2 billion, according to a report by Calcalist.
This deal would represent Cisco’s latest move in its aggressive shift from building networking hardware toward software-driven security solutions, building on the momentum from its landmark $28 billion acquisition of Splunk in March 2024.
Axonius has publicly denied that they are not “in talks to be acquired by Cisco.” “Our strategy is to build a durable, independent company. We are focused on execution, serving our customers, and continuing our growth. That is where our attention is,” the company said.
However, the proposed acquisition still reflects an important industry trend, where there’s the consolidation of cyber asset management and exposure management capabilities as enterprises increasingly grapple with expanding attack surfaces, which are all largely driven by wide AI integration and cloud adoption.
Axonius’ Technology and Market Position
Axonius, founded in 2017 by Israeli former military operators, is a platform that solves a pervasive enterprise problem, which is the inability to maintain accurate, actionable inventory of all connected devices and applications across IT, cloud, and operational technology environments.
Previously valued at $2.6 billion, Axonius also commands about 32% market share in the Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CSAM) category, ahead of competitor Armis at 22.2% and Qualys at 10.5%.
Cisco’s Security Platform Evolution
Cisco’s proposed Axonius acquisition aligns with the company’s deliberate corporate strategy to pivot from legacy networking hardware to integrated cybersecurity software and AI-powered observability platforms.
The $28 billion Splunk acquisition in 2024 stands at the inflection point of this trend, as it directly positioned Cisco to now compete directly with pure-play security firms – companies that focus exclusively on building and providing cybersecurity products and services.
Now since 2023, Cisco has built a noteworthy security portfolio by executing a series of complementary security acquisitions. These include acquiring Oort, a company focused on Identity management; Robust Intelligence, an AI Security firm; DeepFactor, a company building cloud-nation application security; and SnapAttack, a company offering threat detection services.
These acquisitions are all done to fill the gaps in the company’s unified Cisco Security Cloud, and to offer more cybersecurity products and services that are in need with the aim of playing catch up in the massive annual cyber revenue race with Microsoft and Palo Alto Networks, two leading cybersecurity providers.
This proposed acquisition is also seen as a way for Cisco to strengthen its hand against rivals like ServiceNow, which recently acquired competitor Armis in a $7 billion deal.
More importantly, the rumored Axonius deal extends Cisco’s strategy into cyber asset management, a domain that has become foundational rather than supplementary to enterprise security.
As organizations increasingly struggle with fragmented IT infrastructures that span cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments, the ability to discover, inventory, and manage all connected assets in real-time has gone from a nice-to-have tool to a mission-critical system, with Cisco positioned rightly to offer these services.
