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Western Digital Corp., a global storage solutions leader, has announced that its HGST subsidiary (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) has acquired Virident Systems, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise flash storage solutions. The acquisition has a price tag of approximately $685 million in cash, and reportedly represents around $645 million in enterprise value.
Virident has been a technology leader in PCIe-based enterprise flash storage solutions utilized for database, cloud computing, webscale and virtualization applications. Virdent’s FlashMAX II offers the largest capacity from a single low-profile PCIe card, and can be installed in any server. Their FlashMAX Connect is the industry’s first enterprise-class software that enables a shared server-side flash storage tier.
According to Steve Milligan, president and chief executive officer at Western Digital, “We have establsihed a competitive position in the enterprise SSD space and with our recently announced acquisitions we are increasing our commitment to become an even more significant player in this high growth segment. Virident has a proven leadership team and a culture of innovation. Its combinations of great people, leading products and advanced technology will enhance our increasingly strategic position in enterprise storage.”
Upon closing of the transaction, Virident CEO Mike Gustafson will join HGST as a senior vice president to lead the Virident team. Gustafson brings more than 20 years experience to the table in storage, server, networking systems and IT. He will report to HGST president Mike Cordano.
Cordano observed that “The Virident acquisiton is a continuation of HGST’s strategy to address customers’ rapidly changing storage needs by delivering intelligent storage devices that tightly integrate hardware and software to maximize solution performance. Virident’s sever-side flash storage helps datacenter customers solve their most significant data infrastructure challenges, including application performance across diverse workloads, power efficiency, and total cost of ownership. We welcome the Virident team to HGST and look forward to further accelerating their momentum.”
Virident’s Mike Gustafson states that “The Virident vision is centered on leading the flash platform transformation. This includes advancing adoption of server-side flash storage, software and solutions in next-generation datacenters. Bringing technology leadership and substantial business advantage to customers is our mission and drives our team every day. I want to recognize and thank our employees and founders for the combination of vision and execution. We are excited to join HGST and accelerate the growth of our business, partnerships and value.”
Close of the acquisition is anticipated to finalize in the fourth quarter of 2013, subject to the usual regulatory conditions and approvals. Western Digital is represented by RBC Capital Markets as financial advisor for the transaction, and Virident is represented by BofA Merrill Lynch. The press release can be viewed in its entirety at Western Digital’s website here.