CiscoLive! Melbourne 2018 marked a major milestone as this is the first time we’ve showcased our investment companies at the show. A main focus of any CiscoLive! event is bringing the latest leading edge technology to attendees including customers and partners. With CI’s focus on investing in disruptive technologies that align with our business today and in the future, CiscoLive! Is the perfect platform to showcase our investments. Our presence was a huge success!
Cisco Investments hosted six portfolio companies including: Exabeam, Puppet, ZillionSource, Kespry, Dynamic Signal, and XY Sense. The pavilion was held in partnership with the Cisco Strategic Innovation Group.
Overall, CiscoLive! Melbourne attendance grew from 6,700 attendees to 7,200 this year, indicating strong support from the region. Both official press and analysts toured the Investments Pavilion, as well as members of the Cisco Australia-New Zealand (ANZ) leadership team, and global Cisco Execs attending the show including Ali Pirani, Nirav Sheth, John Manville, Jim Doran, and Jonathan Davidson. Also, local Cisco account teams were highly engaged with CI portfolio companies
The rise in overall attendance for Cisco Live Melbourne, and the specific interest in the Investments Pavilion is indicative of two things for CI:
ANZ represents a growing opportunity for Cisco; the region is currently Cisco’s 7th largest market at $1.4B.
Interest is high in finding non-core market areas to penetrate like collaboration and IoT which are strongly represented in our portfolio.
Below are just a few highlights from Cisco Live:
In addition to the our scheduled exec tours, there were numerous ad hoc tours including the senior ANZ leadership team (Ken Boal, Kevin Bloch, Tim Fawcett, Sam Gerner, Myron Stein, Jason Brouwers, Tara Ridley), ANZ Bank Client Director Shane Grove and the ANZ Bank ventures team, and Collab PSS Vivian Panagakis, who introduced Gianpaolo Carraro, Director Global Applications at Telstra, to Dynamic Signal.
Chris Stewart, Sr. Director Business Development & Alliances from Exabeam. presented at the PartnerXperience event on Wednesday. Zillion Source had interaction with top level executives from prominent companies in the region at their booth and theater presentation. Kespry’s drone, accompanied by demonstrations for both mining and disaster management applications, was particularly well received by the conference attendees.
Dynamic Signal attended a “Spark Developer” event where the company had a chance to meet Cisco senior leaders from our Collaboration Business Unit including Rowan Trollop Jim Doran, and other leaders from Collab. XY Sense engaged with numerous reps from Cisco Sales including Cisco executives Myron Stein, Head of Public Sector, ANZ, and Sam Gerner, DTO + Head of Enterprise ANZ. Puppet currently has 22 sales reps in the region and capitalized on their Cisco Investments presence as a hub for the week’s meetings and activities at CiscoLive! They also presented at the Telstra Partner event.
Many thanks to everyone who put in the extra time required to ensure our inaugural #CLMeL presence was a great success! Cisco Investments next stop is CiscoLIVE! Orlando, June 10-14 2018, where we will showcase twenty-two of our startups. Be sure to stop by the Innovation Pavilion to learn more about these fascinating companies working with Cisco to shape the future of technology.