Oracle buys Israeli cloud company Ravello

[February 23, 2016]  TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Business software maker Oracle Corp, which is seeking to expand its cloud business, has agreed to buy Israeli cloud software company Ravello Systems, the two firms said on their websites on Tuesday.

While the size of the deal was not disclosed, Israeli media reported it was between $400 million and $450 million.

Officials at Ravello and Oracle declined to comment.

Ravello, which was founded in 2011 and employs about 60 people, has raised $54 million, with its largest shareholders being Norwest Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Oracle said all Ravello employees would join Oracle as part of Oracle Public Cloud.

Ravello will accelerate Oracle's ability to help customers move complex applications to the cloud, Ravello Chief Executive Rami Tamir said on his company's website.

Cloud computing enables services to be delivered to companies over the Internet rather than them having to maintain expensive infrastructure in-house.

Ravello, whose service runs on public clouds such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud, enables enterprises to easily move large applications to the cloud.

"An organization which may be developing a complicated piece of software can now leverage rental economics (of the cloud) without buying servers," Bessemer partner Adam Fisher told Reuters. "There is no way to do that except by rewriting the application or by using a unique service like Ravello."

Ravello's customers include Check Point Software Technologies, Symantec and Intel's McAfee.

Fisher said many cyber security companies use Ravello to simulate cyber attacks in the cloud.

"This is a strategic acquisition in an area where Israel stands out - virtualization and cloud technology," Fisher said.

(Reporting by Tova Cohen; Editing by Mark Potter)

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