Google is reportedly in talks to acquire D2iQ, a cloud software company that specialises in application management.
The company was valued at $775 million after a Series D funding round in 2018, according to Axios, although it's current value is thought to be considerably lower.
It's not a done deal, and may not happen at all, an unnamed source told Axios, with at least one board member of D2iQ said to be against the acquisition. The cloud company laid off about 13% of its workforce last week to cut costs ahead of an estimated 40% drop in sales, according to Business Insider.
The company was formally known as Mesosphere but changed to D2iQ (which stands for Day-Two-I-Q) last year to better suit a change in strategy built around Kubernetes offerings.
"We chose the name D2iQ because it reflects both our legacy and future focus: to deliver enterprise-grade cloud platforms so that our customers can embrace prevailing open-source and cloud-native innovations while realising smarter Day 2 operations," CEO Mike Fey wrote in a blog post.
It already has a relationship with Google as a Google Cloud and G Suite partner, but it's thought that Google is interested in acquiring the firm due to its integrated Kubernetes software.
The open source server management technology was originally developed by Google and the startup could be part of a strategy to help the tech giant compete with Amazon in the cloud computing market.
If a buyout goes ahead, it would be the third major acquisition for Google's cloud business of 2020. The company announced two in February with Dutch-based mainframe migration specialist Cornerstone Technologies and data analytics firm Looker, which was subject to a review from the UK's competition markets watchdog.
