Cisco Investments has operated as Cisco's corporate venture arm since 1993, and its own language is direct about what sets it apart: investing is 'part of the company, and it's strategic,' meaning capital comes bundled with access to Cisco's infrastructure, go-to-market channels, and enterprise customer relationships. That strategy sharpened further in June 2024 with the launch of a dedicated $1 billion AI fund focused on secure and trustworthy AI, adding names like Cohere and Scale AI to a portfolio that already spanned networking, observability, and security. The clearest proof of the model's payoff came in Cisco's 2021 year-in-review, which named HashiCorp, Confluent, and GitLab together as portfolio companies that went public that year.
HashiCorp's December 2021 Nasdaq IPO at a roughly $14 billion valuation - Cisco's 2021 year-in-review named it alongside Confluent and GitLab as portfolio IPO milestones; HashiCorp was later taken private in IBM's February 2025 acquisition