Cisco builds and sells enterprise networking, security, collaboration, observability, and cloud infrastructure products. It serves large enterprises, service providers, governments, and commercial customers globally.

Who is the CEO of Cisco?

Chuck Robbins is Cisco's Chair and Chief Executive Officer.

Networking and security

What is Cisco?

Q: How much has Cisco raised?

Cisco had early venture backing and went public in 1990. It is now a public company, so funding should be viewed through public-company capitalization rather than current VC rounds.

Q: Who are Cisco's competitors?

Cisco competes with Arista, Juniper, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, HPE Aruba, Extreme Networks, and others depending on the product category.

Q: Is Cisco a Sequoia portfolio company?

Yes. Sequoia lists Cisco in its official Our Companies directory.

Enterprise networking, security, observability, and collaboration infrastructure for global organizations.

Category: Networking and security
Headquarters: San Jose, CA
Founded: 1984
Employees: 90,400 reported in FY2025
Total funding: Venture-backed before IPO
Status: Public: NASDAQ CSCO

What is Cisco?

Cisco is a public enterprise technology company best known for networking, switching, routing, security, collaboration, and observability products. In fiscal 2025 it reported $56.7 billion in revenue while leaning further into AI infrastructure, security, and subscription software.

Cisco sells the infrastructure large organizations use to connect users, applications, data centers, campuses, branches, and clouds. Its portfolio spans networking hardware, IOS/NX-OS software, Meraki cloud-managed networking, Duo identity security, ThousandEyes internet visibility, Webex collaboration, and Splunk observability and security analytics. The company reported fiscal 2025 revenue of $56.7 billion and disclosed more than $2 billion of AI infrastructure orders from webscale customers during the year.

Cisco is no longer only a hardware box vendor. Its annual reports describe a continuing shift toward software, subscriptions, security, observability, and as-a-service offerings, accelerated by the 2024 Splunk acquisition. For sellers, Cisco is a very large enterprise account with formal procurement, partner-channel influence, and distributed buying centers across networking, security, cloud operations, collaboration, finance, and supply chain.

Sources:Cisco FY2025 earnings release Cisco 2025 annual report

What does Cisco offer?

Cisco offers enterprise networking, security, observability, collaboration, and cloud-managed infrastructure products.

Switching and routing· Networking
Wireless and Meraki· Cloud-managed networking
Security and Duo· Security
Splunk observability and SIEM· Observability
Webex· Collaboration
ThousandEyes· Internet visibility
AI-ready data center networking· Infrastructure

Sources:Cisco products Cisco FY2025 annual report

How does Cisco make money?

Cisco makes money from product sales, subscriptions, software licenses, support, services, and partner-led enterprise contracts.

Cisco's revenue mix includes hardware products, software subscriptions, licenses, support, and professional services. Public pricing is product-specific rather than a single SaaS menu: Meraki devices combine hardware with cloud license terms, Duo publishes identity-security per-user plans, Webex has collaboration plans, and enterprise infrastructure is commonly sold through quotes, resellers, and multi-year agreements. The company reports revenue by product and services rather than by individual SKU price.

Growth is driven by enterprise refresh cycles, AI data-center demand, security consolidation, observability budgets after the Splunk acquisition, and recurring support or subscription attach. Cisco's fiscal 2025 services revenue and subscription narrative show why renewals and installed-base expansion matter as much as net-new hardware. Sellers should expect structured vendor onboarding, channel conflict checks, security reviews, and global purchasing processes.

Sources:Cisco annual reports Cisco Duo pricing

Who leads Cisco?

Cisco is led by Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins, with product, customer experience, finance, legal, and people leaders on a large executive team.

Chuck RobbinsChair and Chief Executive OfficerCEO since 2015Sets corporate strategy across networking, security, observability, collaboration, AI infrastructure, and M&A.
Jeetu PatelPresident and Chief Product OfficerProduct leadership role expanded by 2026Owns product direction across Cisco's portfolio.
Liz CentoniEVP and Chief Customer Experience OfficerCisco executive leadershipLeads customer experience and post-sale success motions.
Mark PattersonChief Financial OfficerCFO effective fiscal 2026Succeeded Scott Herren after the FY2025 leadership transition.

Sources:Cisco executive bios Cisco leadership update

Who are Cisco's decision-makers?

How do you contact Cisco's leadership?

Cisco publishes corporate, investor, partner, and media contact paths rather than verified personal executive emails. Use official Cisco contact routes or partner channels for outreach.

Email formatPublic contact routes; personal executive email format not verified

Chuck RobbinsChair and CEOhttps://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/about/contact-cisco/index.html
Jeetu PatelPresident and Chief Product Officerhttps://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/about/contact-cisco/index.html
Mark PattersonChief Financial Officerhttps://investor.cisco.com/contact-us/default.aspx

Sources:Cisco contact Cisco investor contact

How much funding has Cisco raised?

Cisco is a public company, so its funding profile is best viewed as early Sequoia-backed venture capital followed by a 1990 IPO rather than current private rounds.

Cisco was founded in 1984 and was one of Sequoia's early enterprise infrastructure successes. Sequoia lists Cisco in its official Our Companies directory and describes Cisco as making networking, security, and collaboration products for enterprise companies. Publicly available company histories focus more on Sequoia's early backing and Cisco's IPO than on a complete modern VC-round table.

Cisco completed its IPO in 1990 and has since funded growth primarily through public-market cash flow, debt markets, and strategic acquisitions rather than venture rounds. Recent capital allocation is better measured through revenue, operating cash flow, buybacks, dividends, debt, and M&A; the $28 billion Splunk acquisition closed in 2024 and changed Cisco's software and observability mix. For this directory, the status is public rather than venture-backed private.

Sources:Sequoia Our Companies Cisco annual reports

How much has Cisco raised?

How did Cisco get here?

Cisco grew from a university-networking startup into one of the largest public enterprise infrastructure companies.

1984Cisco foundedLeonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner start Cisco around routing and campus-networking technology.
1987Sequoia-backed growthSequoia becomes associated with Cisco's early venture history.
1990IPOCisco becomes a public company on NASDAQ.
2015Chuck Robbins becomes CEORobbins succeeds John Chambers and shifts Cisco toward software, security, cloud, and subscriptions.
2024Splunk acquisition closesCisco adds a major observability and security analytics business.
2025$56.7B FY2025 revenueCisco reports FY2025 revenue growth and more than $2B in AI infrastructure orders from webscale customers.

Sources:Cisco newsroom executive bios Cisco FY2025 earnings

Who are Cisco's competitors?

Cisco competes with networking, security, cloud, and observability vendors depending on the product line.

Arista NetworksCompetes strongly in cloud and AI data-center switching.
Juniper NetworksCompetes in routing, switching, wireless, and enterprise networking.
Palo Alto NetworksCompetes most directly in network security and platform consolidation.
FortinetCompetes in firewall, secure networking, SASE, and branch security.
HPE Aruba NetworkingCompetes in campus, wireless, branch, and edge networking.
Extreme NetworksCompetes in enterprise switching, Wi-Fi, and cloud-managed networking.