Cisco set to acquire Working Group Two in move to “turbocharge” CSP innovation

Cisco has announced its intention to acquire Working Group Two, a Norwegian cloud-native mobile services provider in a move to support the launch of its Mobility Services Platform. 

Masum Mir, senior VP and GM for Cisco Networking, revealed the plans today in a statement, noting that the acquisition will help “turbocharge” the firm’s recently-launched services program. 

The deal, believed to be for a fee of $150 million, will see parent company Telenor sell its 44% shares in the firm. The deal is expected to close during the first quarter of Cisco’s 2024 financial year, according to Mir. 

“Cisco is announcing its intent to acquire Working Group Two (WG2), a Norwegian company that pioneered a cloud-native mobile services platform that’s fully API consumable and highly programmable,” he said. 

“With WG2 and the Cisco Mobility Services Platform, we’ll be able to boost our service edge deployment and API first strategy for application development partners, enterprise customers, and Service Provider partners.”

W2G provides cloud-native platform applications for mobile communications providers. The firm initially began as a development project at Telenor before spinning out in 2017. 

Since becoming its own entity, the firm has rapidly expanded its headcount and now serves customers in the European, Asian, and North American markets. 

Dan Ouchterlony, EVP and head of Telenor Amp, said the deal represents the culmination of a “Norwegian technology success story”.

Mir noted that Cisco and W2G have a “unique synergy” and that the deal aligns with a shared common goal to deliver “global programmable mobile core as a service”. 

In a joint statement reacting to the acquisition, CEO Erlend Prestgard and CTO Werner Eriksen echoed Mir’s comments, stating that the organizations both have a “remarkable alignment in core beliefs, vision, and culture.”

“We are incredibly excited about seeing our technology combined and deployed with Cisco’s scale and market presence.”

In the long term, the deal will enable Cisco to support communications service provider customers to rapidly monetize 5G investments and provide “enhanced edge experiences, enable new and advanced use cases, as well as support simple application development.”

“WG2’s expertise in the mobile space brings capabilities crucial to the enterprise market including complete authentication, provisioning, voice, messaging, and data services, all of which will be rolled into our existing Control Center offers,” Mir said. 

“Together, our Mobility Services Platform, and the Cisco Networking Cloud, Assurance, Security, and Collaboration portfolios, deliver remarkable value to our Service Provider partners and address business-critical use cases for our enterprise customers.”