I think Meraki was the 4th startup that I ever invested in (first was Wufoo).<p>When we visited their office in Mountain View, it was full of "Meraki Minis" (their first batch of hardware). I asked how much money they had raised so far, and their response was, "none". They were so scrappy that they had managed to build the first batch (which was partially pre-sold) for practically nothing. And they somehow got the office space for free.<p>Very impressive team. Glad I invested :)
Well, looks like pg called it on this one.<p>"MAKE HARDWARE WITH NON-SUCKY SOFTWARE."<p>"okay"<p>"Here, have a billion."<p>Obviously, I am omitting all of the actual work for entertainment value. Edit: isn't a YC company, I don't want to confuse things.<p><a href="http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html" rel="nofollow">http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html</a><p>"27. Hardware/software hybrids. Most hackers find hardware projects alarming. You have to deal with messy, expensive physical stuff. But Meraki shows what you can do if you're willing to venture even a little way into hardware. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit in hardware; you can often do dramatically new things by making comparatively small tweaks to existing stuff."
Congratulations guys (if you're reading). I'm sure this has nothing at all to do with Ruckus going public [1] :-) Its a great exit and Cisco certainly has the manufacturing and marketing reach to take you to the next level.<p>That said, I find it fascinating that my first experience with wireless gear was with Aeronet (which was also $1B+ buy for Cisco) And of course Linksys ($1B+). And now Meraki ($1B+) So here is the multi-billion dollar question, "Why does Cisco keep spending billions of dollars on WiFi companies and still they aren't leading the market in WiFi innovation?"<p>[1] <a href="http://www.ruckuswireless.com/press/releases/20121116-ruckus-celebrates-ipo-and-first-day-of-trading-on-nyse" rel="nofollow">http://www.ruckuswireless.com/press/releases/20121116-ruckus...</a>
How fortunate in the short term, and unfortunate in the long term.<p>< removed long cynical rant about Cisco and handling of IronPort ><p>(funny story, Cisco's workplace resources group's bonuses are based on (total revenue) / headcount+workplace costs. Instead of incentives based on retention and growth, the group gets a bigger bonus every time a group is downsized, or they close an office.)
I remember way back in 2006 or so when Meraki was a startup trying to sell the hardware units geared towards community wifi systems. A short time after getting the units out into the community they 'pivoted' away from that model and started charging for the service: obviously trying to gear their stuff towards business customers.<p>I'm glad this pivot worked!
Neat.<p>Every time I find a company that I think is worth working for, I spend time on a good cover letter to try to get interest or even play around with their API and build something simple. Meraki was one of those companies I cared enough to write about, I believe, but I never heard back from them. I seem to not be good enough to be hired but good enough to recognize the best, lol.<p>Perhaps I should start a newsletter.
One of the things mentioned in the acquisition FAQ was that one of the key differentiators was the Meraki business model.<p>Can anyone shed more light on exactly what is different?<p>EDIT: Also, since I have never priced any of their gear before, any idea on ballpark costs (list) would be nice.
Congratulations Meraki, very well deserved!<p>I just wonder if they had continued their run, could they have IPO-ed at a much higher valuation? They seem to have both very strong product and business fundamentals. Would love to hear thoughts on this..
Congratulations to the Meraki team. I was hoping to see them make more of a run on the wireless incumbents, but I can understand that 1.2b was too much to pass up (considering Aruba's market cap is only 2.1b).
I wonder how similar this is to Ubiquiti's UniFi enterprise WiFi system. I'm a big fan, UniFi is just excellent as is their point to point/WISP solution airMAX, very inexpensive too. For example, I recently set up an airMAX 280Mbps point to point link over about 1/2 mile using 2x Nanostation M5's for ... $140! Their airFiber system gives you 1.4Gbps over up to 10km for about $2.5K for the pair of radios.<p><a href="http://ubnt.com" rel="nofollow">http://ubnt.com</a>
I gotta ask, I was looking for some access points for a small company. How does meraki compare to the super cheap
<a href="http://www.open-mesh.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.open-mesh.com/</a><p>which seems to have some nice software as well. Is Meraki really aimed towards enterprise who can justify $1000 access points?
Congrats to Meraki team. Another exit for Sequoia. Looks like they had an excellent year where companies like Palo Alto Networks, Kayak, LinkedIn that went public (and doing well). And companies like Instagram, Meraki got acquired for north of billion dollars.
Interesting article on the CEO, Sanjit Biswas:<p>Move over, Doogie Howser; here comes Engineer Biswas
<a href="http://mytown.mercurynews.com/archives/sunnyvalesun/04.29.98/SanjitBiswas.html" rel="nofollow">http://mytown.mercurynews.com/archives/sunnyvalesun/04.29.98...</a>
I understand how Ruckus could be doing IPO. Since they actually solve the problem with too many WiFi connections going to single point. Problems we have seen in Hotels, and Apple Expo. etc<p>How is Meraki different? Since Ruckus is a software + hardware solution.
I might be wrong but the word meraki is one of those greek words that cant be translated in english and means passion to work and develop something. Try it on google translate as μεράκι !