Arrcus, a hyperscale networking software start-up based in San Jose, California, named Shekar Ayyar as its CEO and chairman of the board. The company also announced a strategic shift toward edge-native, large-scale distributed and disaggregated networking opportunities. In addition, Arrcus announced the infusion of new capital from its strategic partners – Liberty Global, SoftBank Corp and Samsung Next. The new investors join the existing investors, Clear Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Ayyar joins Arrcus from VMware where he was the executive vice president and general manager of the Telco and Edge Cloud business. He also led VMware’s strategy and corporate development efforts in enterprise software and communications while overseeing over 60 M&A transactions and investments including the acquisitions of Nicira, AirWatch, and VeloCloud.
Regarding its new focus, Arrcus said 5G and edge computing are accelerating the network infrastructure transformation requiring programmable and massively scalable, multi-cloud optimized, cost-effective connectivity for the next generation of distributed applications including remote work environments, industrial automation, and content distribution.
The Arrcus Connected Edge (ACE) platform targets the convergence of communications and compute infrastructure at the edge, delivering massive network scale and performance, and enabling service providers and enterprises to create new services and deliver superior end-user experiences at a low total cost of ownership (TCO).
“Shekar is a passionate technology leader with a proven track record of translating strategy into execution and corralling high-performing teams to deliver results. On behalf of Arrcus employees and the board, I am excited to have him join us as our CEO at this important time,” said Keyur Patel, Founder and CTO, Arrcus. “We are confident in Shekar’s leadership to take advantage of the opportunities ahead of us and drive Arrcus forward as we enter the next phase of product innovation and growth.”
“I am delighted to be joining Arrcus as CEO at this inflection point in the industry when customers are seeking edge-native, large-scale distributed and disaggregated networking to support their 5G and edge deployments. The Arrcus Connected Edge (ACE) is uniquely positioned to provide network performance at scale, while delivering efficiently low TCO for enterprises and service providers,” said Shekar Ayyar, CEO, Arrcus.
“Service providers are under relentless pressure to modernize their networks to deliver new, innovative services at the edge while meeting stringent requirements for high bandwidth and low latency,” said Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager, Core Switching Group, Broadcom. “At the time when carrier networks are going through this transformation, we are excited to see the Arrcus Connected Edge infrastructure leverage our StrataDNX family of switch SOCs, including Jericho2, Qumran2C, Jericho2C, and Qumran2A merchant silicon platforms to offer a flexible, high-performance, cost-optimized, low-power solution and address the challenging needs of the most demanding telco workloads.”
