Cisco’s massive $28 billion acquisition of Splunk in September was the financial highlight of a quarter during which several other vendors also made strategic purchases to position themselves for emerging enterprise requirements around cloud, application, and identity security.

The acquisitions added to a better-than-expected quarter ended Sept. 30, 2023, with venture funding also picking up steam after a slowdown earlier this year following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. IPO activity showed early signs of a revival for the first time since late 2021 and provided further evidence of the resilience of the sector against economic conditions that have roiled other verticals.