News Release
Media contact: Gwen Avery, edgeflow
613-270-9279; gwen.avery@edgeflow.com
Gillian Brouse, for edgeflow
613-230-1863 ext. 223;
gillian@reideddison.com
EDGEFLOWÔ SECURES FUNDING OF $24
MILLION
Strong interest by
carriers and service providers for
edgeflow Optical Add/Drop Switch leads to oversubscribed round
Ottawa, Canada, September 17, 2001 — edgeflow Inc. (www.edgeflow.com ), a developer of an
advanced metro optical networking element called an Optical Add/Drop Switch
(OADX), today announced the completion of a US $24 million Series A round of
funding. The funding will be used to expand the company’s activities in sales,
customer service, as well as further market and product development.
The lead investors in
this round were Sierra Ventures (www.sierraven.com)
and Newbury Ventures (www.newburyven.com),
a private equity firm focused on investments in communications and information
technology companies. Joining seed investor Venture Coaches (www.venturecoaches.com) in this
round, new investors include Desjardins Venture Capital Group (www.desjardins.com/id), Primaxis
Technology Ventures (www.primaxis.com),
RBC Capital Partners Telecom Fund (www.rbcap.com),
BTG, (www.btgplc.com) and Pan Dacom
Networking AG (www.pandacom.de) of
Germany.
“Our
product solution is unique and has attracted strong interest among the major
carriers. As a result, we were oversubscribed in this round,” said Wes Biggs,
president and CEO of edgeflow. “With this infusion of funding, we are well
positioned to achieve our next major milestone -- customer trials.”
“edgeflow has a great offering for
dramatically improving the cost and efficiency of optical networks,” said Ken
Wigglesworth, venture partner with Newbury Ventures and principal for its
affiliate Eagle One Ventures. “Every major carrier is looking to build a
wavelength infrastructure and the solution from edgeflow lets them do it faster
and for less cost than any of the competing solutions.”
“The team at edgeflow
represents the people who not only invented private networking but who
perfected network management in a carrier class environment," said Jeff
Drazan, general partner of Sierra Ventures. "I am thrilled with the
progress they have made to date."
Today, carriers and
service providers are deploying Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers (OADMs) as well
as Optical Cross Connects (OXCs) to provide the same functionality as an
edgeflow OADX. Aside from the obvious drawbacks of added cost, complexity and
footprint, these solutions are not transparent -- meaning that they are not
bit-rate and protocol independent. Carriers and service providers are looking
to deploy edgeflow’s transparent OADX because it requires just 1/5 the cost and
1/5 the footprint of competing solutions. Unlike all-optical approaches,
edgeflow provides performance monitoring and network management that makes
point-and-click provisioning of wavelengths a reality. edgeflow’s
patent-protected approach positions the company to secure a leadership position
in this emerging market.
Founded
in 2000, edgeflow Inc. (www.edgeflow.com)
is a privately held wavelength networking company. edgeflow is building an advanced metro optical networking element
called an Optical Add/Drop Switch (OADX).
By integrating optical switching and transmission within a single unit, the
OADX delivers immediate reductions in cost and network complexity for carriers
and service providers. edgeflow offers a uniquely transparent solution
(bit-rate and protocol independent) with superior performance monitoring and
network management.
About Sierra Ventures
Sierra Ventures (www.sierraven.com) is a private Menlo
Park, California, venture capital firm that focuses its investments on early
and pre-public communications, software and Internet-related content and
infrastructure companies. As active lead investors, Sierra Ventures works with
entrepreneurs and management teams to build new companies into large,
profitable businesses. Sierra manages eight venture capital partnerships, which
together have more than $1.1 billion of committed capital.
Newbury Ventures is an international venture capital group focused on
investing in and growing entrepreneurial companies in the communication and
information technology sectors. The firm specializes in identifying
opportunities for significant capital appreciation, by investing in promising
entrepreneurial companies at early stages of their corporate development. Newbury’s partners have financed well over
100 successful emerging growth technology companies, with over a third
conceived and built to leverage the binational investment model using
multinational skills and resources. Newbury has recently expanded its reach
into Canada, adding venture partners Conrad Lewis and Ken Wigglesworth,
principals of Eagle One Ventures, based in Kanata, Ontario. Eagle One Ventures is a "mentor
capital" firm created with the objective of accelerating the success of
early stage telecom and networking infrastructure companies. www.newburyven.com www.eagleoneventures.com
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edgeflow
is a trademark of edgeflow Inc. Other
trademarks that may be used in this document are property of their respective
owners.