Cloud Giants Eye Mesosphere

Software startup Mesosphere has hired investment banking firm Qatalyst Partners to evaluate a buyout bid it recently received from a major cloud computing company and to engage with other potential bidders, according to a person involved in that process and a person who was briefed about it.

Because the bid came from a major public cloud provider, one of the people said, the identity of the bidder is likely either Microsoft, Amazon.com or Google. Cisco Systems could be a logical suitor as well. Qatalyst has pegged the startup’s valuation at north of $1 billion, the people said.