Two different destinies

Following my article on the Storage Newsletter published 2 days ago that tries to explain and understand why SimpliVity got acquired for a pretty low EVI multiple (Enterprise Value /  Investment - 2.35x) by HPE, Cisco just announced the acquisition of AppDynamics for $3.7B, a price we heard for SimpliVity just a few months ago still from same acquirer. Immediately we realize that the EVI is 11.78x which reflects a super deal for investors and AppDynamics and confirms the hot position of the company.
So what are the differences and common facts ?
Except that both companies have participated to The IT Press Tour - SimpliVity in June 2013 for the 23rd edition - and AppDynamics 2 times in March 2016 for the 18th edition and in June 2014 for the 13th edition - that boosts their visibility, they both play in a hot market segment and are clearly leaders in their respective domain - Hyperconvergence for SimpliVity and Application Performance Management for AppDynamics.

	SimpliVity	AppDynamics
Year founded	2009	2008
Market Segment	Hyperconvergence	Application Performance Management
IPO	No	in process
Acq. Amount	$650M (cash)	$3.7B
Acq. Date	Jan. 2017	Jan. 2017
Acquirer	HPE	Cisco
VC Money	$276M	$314M
EVI*	2.35x	11.78x
Revenue	$150-187M (estimated)	2014: $23.6M 2015: $81.9M 2016: $150.6M
EVS**	4.33x-3.47x	24.6x
Emp. #	750 (June 2016)	1186 (Oct. 2016)

Born in 2008 for AppDynamics and 2009 for SimpliVity, they also raised ton of money - SimpliVity $276M and AppDynamics $314M - and people spoke about huge amount for potential acquisition for SimpliVity in November, around 3 to $4B from HPE, and huge amount as well for AppDynamics working on their IPO for months. So many similar sign between the two but at the end 2 different destinies:

• No IPO and acquisition for just $650M in cash for SimpliVity, again a very good deal for HPE. SimpliVity was not in a IPO position and revenue was not in the right range, raising money was also a challenge with a too big valuation that creates a big divergence point, these elements seam to be the key difference factor between the 2 companies and acquisition amount.
• IPO process started with a date of 1st trade this week (tomorrow ?) with a goal to raise $2B that finally morphs in an acquisition by Cisco for $3.7B announced yesterday, Cisco thinking that the price could be higher later, potentially yes.

2017 starts with 3 acquisitions, at least the ones I pay attention to, for a total in the range of $4.4-4.5B. Interesting start...