San Jose: Cisco has pumped the acquisition spree, and plans to acquire privately held Lightwire. The acquisition will be for $271 million in cash and retention-based incentives in exchange for all shares of Lightwire.

Headquartered in Pennsylvania, the company develops advanced optical interconnect technology for high-speed networking applications, and was founded in 2002 by Kal Shastri. Shastri is a serial entrepreneur, an angel investor and an incubator of startups. In the past, he has served on the boards of Photuris,, OptronX, Circadiant Systems and Smart Bridges. He holds a PhD. in Physics from Columbia University and M.Sc. in Physics from IIT-Kanpur.

The acquisition will allow Cisco to deliver cost-effective, high-speed networks with the next generation of optical connectivity, allowing service provider and data center customers to meet the growing demands of video, data, voice, mobility and cloud services.

‘The acquisition of Lightwire will support our data center and service provider customers as they manage the continuing deluge of network traffic alongside tight capital and operating budgets,” said Surya Padniti, senior VP, Cisco Services Provider Networking Group.

Upon the close of the acquisition, Lightwire employees will be integrated into Cisco’s Transceiver Modules Group Business Unit and Supply Chain Operations Group. The acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to be complete in the third quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2012.