Silver Spring Networks has raised about $160 million to fund its big push into smart meter networking, and now it may be looking to spend some of that money on acquisitions.
That's according to CEO Scott Lang, who told Reuters (via Forbes) that the Redwood City, Calif.-based startup may be announcing an acquisition in the next two months.
The comment came in a Wednesday story that named Silver Spring as one of six Silicon Valley startups seen as likely acquisition or IPO targets, according to an informal poll of VCs.
Silver Spring isn't looking to be bought, Lang said. But he has hinted at an IPO in the next year or two, according to this Bloomberg article.
Lang also told Bloomberg that Silver Spring should be profitable in the third quarter of 2009 and expects to double its revenues to $200 million in 2010.
That money comes from all the smart meters in which Silver Spring is installing its communications and networking gear - about 2 million of them expected to be in the field by the end of the year, a company executive said in February.
Those are smart meters being deployed by utilities including Pacific Gas & Electric, Florida Power & Light, Pepco Holdings, Commonwealth Edison, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and Australian utilities Jemena Electricity Networks and United Energy Distribution (see Green Light post).
Silver Spring has also landed former Clinton Administration national economic advisor Laura D'Andrea Tyson as a board member, and brought Judy Lin, Cisco Systems's senior vice president of its Ethernet switching technology group, on board as an executive in June (see Green Light post).
Some have speculated that Cisco, which has entered the smart grid field with plans that include networking smart meters, might seek to acquire Silver Spring. Certainly the two companies could find themselves competing for contracts in smart meter networking, along with rivals such as Trilliant and SmartSynch.
The two are working together in a Florida Power & Light smart meter project, though they haven't laid out just how they intend to integrate their technologies (see A Million Smart Meters for Miami).
