Ericsson is continuing its expansion in the US with the acquisition of CENX, a specialist in service orchestration. Ericsson has held a minority stake in CENX since 2012; no financial details on the acquisition of the rest of the company were disclosed.
Ericsson said the deal will strengthen its position in NFV and orchestration, adding CENX’s closed-loop automation and service assurance capabilities. The ability to leverage network virtualization and orchestrate and automate network slices is expected to be a key component of developing new 5G services for enterprise customers. Ericsson’s global sales and delivery presence, as well as its extensive R&D operations, will also create economies of scale in the CENX portfolio and help Ericsson to offer in-house products for OSS automation and assurance.
Founded in 2009, CENX is headquartered in New Jersey and employs 185 people. The company achieved significant year-over-year revenue growth in 2017, Ericsson said, without disclosing figures. Its previous investors included Highland Capital, Mesirow Financia Private Equity, Verizon Ventures, DCM Ventures, Cross Creek Advisors, BDC Capital, Mistral Venture and VMware.
