Mist Systems

CEO: Sujai Hajela

Founded: 2014

Headquarters: Mountain View, Calif.

A more traditional selection from analysts was networking startup Mist Systems, which was founded by former Cisco executives. The network leader has also invested in the startup.

"Cisco definitely needs to look for innovation in the Wi-Fi space, they're losing market share and really flattening out in terms of growth," said one analyst from a global IT research firm, who did not wish to be identified. "For the non-Meraki side of the house, customers are maybe starting to see Cisco as stale in wireless and not able to keep up with the younger, cooler innovators in the space. Mist does have a really cool virtual BLE technology. They're really good with location-services, which is something Cisco has been trying to make a big part of their value proposition with mixed results."