Cisco plans to acquire NeuralFabric, a Seattle-area startup founded by a group of Microsoft veterans that makes back-end software for companies to build and run their own generative AI models. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The Silicon Valley enterprise tech mainstay said the deal will bolster its AI Canvas initiative, a generative UI and collaboration environment announced earlier this year.
In its announcement Thursday morning, Cisco highlighted NeuralFabric’s expertise in distributed systems, model training, and flexible deployment as a complement to its existing AI assistant, cybersecurity models, and data fabric strategy.
DJ Sampath, senior vice president for AI software and platforms, said in the announcement that the startup has “cracked a crucial part of this puzzle” by building technology that lets companies develop their own domain-specific small language models using proprietary data across cloud or on-premises environments.
NeuralFabric, based in Redmond, was founded in 2023 by former Microsoft Azure engineering veteran Weijie Lin (CEO), longtime Microsoft executive John deVadoss, AI entrepreneur Jesus Rodriguez (president), and cloud and security veteran Mark Baciak (CTO), with former Microsoft director Drew Gude (chief revenue officer) also listed as an early exec.
The startup employs about nine people, according to LinkedIn. Cisco said the acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of its 2026 fiscal year (by the end of January), after which NeuralFabric’s team will join the company’s AI Software and Platform organization.
NeuralFabric had raised at least $5 million in funding as of February 2024 announcement. PitchBook lists investors including Collab+Currency, CMT Digital, and New Form Capital.
