Rakuten Symphony acquires Kubernetes platform Robin.io – TechCrunch

Rakuten Symphony, the recently launched telco-focused arm of Japan’s Rakuten Group, today announced that it has acquired Robin.io, a startup that offers a Kubernetes platform optimized for storage solutions and complex network applications. Rakuten Mobile was one of the company’s early customers and Rakuten Capital led Robin.io’s Series C funding round. Rakuten now plans to integrate Robin.io’s tools for multi-cloud mobility, automation and orchestration into the Rakuten Symphony portfolio.

When it first launched, Robin.io mostly focused on storage solutions, but it has since expanded beyond that to offer a more fully-featured Kubernetes platform. Its marketing always emphasized large telco operators, with solutions for automating 5G services applications on Kubernetes and orchestrating private 5G and LTE deployments, for example. Rakuten Symphony, meanwhile, focuses on exactly these kinds of cloud-native open infrastructure deployments and services. It surely also helped that Robin.io owns 70 patents and counts numerous Fortune 1000 enterprises around the globe among its customers. Sounds like a match made in telco heaven.

“I am delighted that Robin.io’s technology innovations over the last several years will now get a much bigger canvas to lead the vision for cloud-native transformation for the industry. Our vision to deliver simple to use, easy to deploy hyperscale automation is very well aligned,” said Partha Seetala, CEO, Robin.io. “We believe Robin.io’s customers will hugely benefit from the synergies of cloud-native technology innovations from Robin.io, and the open competitive infrastructure solutions and global scale of Rakuten Symphony. This is indeed an exciting phase for us as we work together to bring a much larger ecosystem together to deliver higher value for our customers globally.”

The two companies did not disclose the price of the acquisition. Prior to today’s announcement, Robin.io had raised a total of $86 million in venture funding. Besides Rakuten Capital, these investors included USAA, Hasso Plattner Ventures, DN Capital, Clear Ventures, Raine Next-Gen Communications and Emory University.