The Top Ten Cloud Deals of 2022

Geopolitical pressures, ongoing supply chain woes, and threats of recession didn’t entirely discourage big deals in 2022. Despite the macro landscape, the cloud technology realm had its share of notable funding rounds, acquisitions, and contract awards. Check out our list below, presented in order from least to most significant:

10. Mavenir gets $155 million. Telco solution provider Mavenir scored big in a funding round early last fall that followed a $95 million loan for Open RAN radio R&D. The supplier is focused on providing the virtualized connectivity required for emerging cloud-native telecom networks, and it appears to be succeeding, particularly among carriers with existing investments in 4G LTE and 5G.

9. DriveNets scores $262 million. Despite rising macroeconomic challenges, DriveNets in August secured one of the biggest funding rounds of the year, bringing its total raised to $587 million and pushing its valuation north of $1 billion. DriveNets offers a Network Cloud software stack that runs on white-box hardware and is controlled with Network Orchestrator software based on microservices. The goal is to let telcos cloudify their network functions and hyperscalers add multicloud capabilities.

8. Google buys Mandiant for $5.4 billion. Alphabet’s (Nasdaq: GOOGL) Google LLC reportedly beat out Microsoft in its bid for security services provider Mandiant in a cash deal that closed in September. Google is now in position to shore up its already-sizeable warchest of cybersecurity products and services for the Google Cloud Platform. Meanwhile, Mandiant’s founder and CEO Kevin Mandia is lending a hand to Cohesity.

7. Citrix is sold for $16.5 billion. In January 2022, collaborative software and SaaS provider Citrix was taken private by investment firms Vista Equity Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital Corp. in an all-cash deal that will combine Citrix with data management and analytics firm TIBCO Software, which is owned by Vista. Citrix continues to operate and sell its products under its own name and branding, albeit in partnership with TIBCO.

6. AMD acquires Pensando for $1.9 billion. When chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (Nasdaq: AMD) bought Pensando this year, it signaled the growing importance of data processing units (DPUs), which add more sophisticated packet processing to network interface cards (NICs), offloading power from server central processing units (CPUs) for functions such as encryption and networking. As cloud hyperscalers expand, DPUs from the likes of Pensando are seen as a means of streamlining infrastructure and improving performance.

5. Microsoft bids on Activision for $68.7 billion. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced plans to buy gaming giant Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI) in January, kicking off months of objections from competitors and regulators. If the transaction closes as planned in 2023, Microsoft will become the third-largest gaming company worldwide, behind Tencent and Sony. The deal would also boost Microsoft’s position in metaverse technologies such as augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) and position it to drive its cloud and AI capabilities into the entertainment markets.

4. The U.S. DoD awards AWS a $9 billion contract. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) ended years of dispute by finally awarding this month an enormous contract for cloud services to a cadre of cloud leaders including AWS, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle (NYSE: ORCL). The contract, now known as the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC), superseded the DoD’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project, which was initially awarded to Microsoft, activating a flurry of protest from AWS. The DoD finally caved in under threat of ongoing litigation, claiming that awarding multiple vendors this lucrative contract was in the best interest of national security.

3. The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) re-awards AWS a $10 billion contract. In line with the U.S. government’s tendency to waffle on big cloud contracts, the NSA in April re-awarded a cloud computing contract dubbed Wild and Stormy to AWS after yet another dramatic tug-of-war. AWS and Microsoft went head to head in the original bidding in 2020, with AWS winning. Microsoft protested; the Government Accountability Office (GAO) supported Microsoft’s claims and recommended a new evaluation. The NSA re-evaluated and picked AWS again. Despite voices raised against the single-vendor selection, it appears to be a done deal.

2. Elon Musk buys Twitter for $44 billion. The contentious billionaire’s purchase of the famed social media outlet has embroiled users, observers, and Musk himself in a stew of missteps and wild reversals. The jury’s out on what the future holds for the platform. We’re waiting and watching.

1. Broadcom to buy VMware for $61 billion. The biggest cloud deal of 2022 came to light in May, when Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO) called dibs on buying VMware (NYSE: VMW) in a cash/stock deal second only to Microsoft’s Activision bid. Once the merger closes in 2023, VMware will take over Broadcom’s software unit, serving large enterprises, particularly in the area of private clouds. Protests against the deal continue, and the ultimate outcome seems, well, cloudy.

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