Progress acquires New York-based load balancing and application delivery tech startup Kemp for $258 million in cash

Progress, a tech company that offers software for creating and deploying business applications, today announced it has acquired New York-based tech startup Kemp for $258 million in an all-cash deal. The acquisition is expected to close in October 2021.

In a statement, the 4-decade old Bedford, MA-based Progress said the acquisition will enable the company to extend its portfolio of market-leading products in DevOps, Application Development, Data Connectivity, and Digital Experience, by adding Application Experience Management (AX).

Founded in 2000 by Peter Melerud, Kemp has redefined load balancing and application delivery with more simplified deployments, and flexible licensing. Kemp is the world’s most popular virtual load balancer with more than 100,000 deployments in 138 countries. The company also powers the always-on application experience for enterprises and service providers.

“Now more than ever, businesses recognize that their applications must always be available and highly performant,” said Yogesh Gupta, CEO, Progress. “The Kemp products address this exact need and complement our portfolio of best-in-class products to develop, deploy and manage high-impact applications.”

Kemp Loadmaster and Flowmon Network Visibility products monitor application performance, and distribute and balance traffic and workloads across servers, in the cloud or on-premise, ensuring high performance and availability. They do this by leveraging machine learning to identify anomalies and alert IT professionals before end-users are impacted. These capabilities complement Progress offerings, such as WhatsUp Gold, a market leader in easy-to-use network management. Combined, they will offer the best application experience solution in the market.

“Now more than ever, businesses recognize that their applications must always be available and highly performant,” said Yogesh Gupta, CEO, Progress. “The Kemp products address this exact need and complement our portfolio of best-in-class products to develop, deploy and manage high-impact applications.”

“The acquisition of Kemp also furthers our total growth strategy and will enable us to add scale and cash flow, creating significant shareholder value,” added Mr. Gupta.

Progress said Kemp meets its’ key acquisition criteria of adding solid levels of recurring revenue, complementary technology, and loyal customers and will provide an opportunity for Progress to leverage its larger platform for improved efficiency.

“We are extremely proud of what we’ve been able to achieve as a business,” said Ray Downes, CEO, Kemp. “As part of Progress, I am confident Kemp will thrive in the next chapter of its journey. Not only will the combined product portfolio provide great benefit to our customers and partners, but the cultural alignment and customer-first focus demonstrated by both organizations are impressive and will surely lead to long-term success for all.”