VMWare closes Carbon Black acquisition, affecting 120 Boulder employees

PALO ALTO, California and BOULDER  — VMWare Inc. (NYSE: VMW) closed its $2.1 billion acquisition of Carbon Black Inc. last Friday, meaning about 120 employees working out of a Pearl Street office in Boulder have a new employer.

In filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, VMWare said Carbon Black, which builds cloud security software, would form a new security business for the Palo Alto-based virtual computing company. The merger finished months ahead of schedule; VMWare previously said it expected the deal to close next January.

Carbon Black announced that it would open an office at 1433 Pearl St. in Boulder last September, citing tech anchors such as Google and Microsoft Inc. (Nasdaq: MSFT) as major attractors for skilled software engineers. It currently has around 120 employees, with space to hire 30 more or so.

In an emailed statement, a Carbon Black spokesman said the company will continue to operate in Boulder as it works on building its security code into VMWare’s programs.

A Colorado shareholder sued VMWare in federal court last month to stop the deal, but a judge dismissed the case last week.

This story has been updated to include comments from Carbon Black.

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