Force10 Networks, a start-up based in Milpitas, California, closed $41 million in new funding to support its line of 10-Gigabit Ethernet switch/routers. The company has raised $209 million to date. Investors in this financing round include New Enterprise Associates (NEA), U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), Worldview Technology Partners, Amerindo Investment Advisors, and Pacesetter Capital Group, among others.
http://www.force10networks.com
- In January, Force10 Networks announced a 44% price cut on its 10-Gigabit Ethernet line cards, reducing the per-port pricing to $17,000.
- Force10 Networks’ 10 Gbps Ethernet switch/router supports up to 336 ports of Gigabit Ethernet or 28 ports of 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GigE) per chassis. Six custom ASICs deliver non-blocking, line-rate forwarding across all ports, even with access control lists (ACLs) or QoS applied. Force10’s software delivers full functionality L2 switching and L3 routing. The company initially is offering two models: the full-size E1200 featuring 14 line-card slots, 1.2 Tbps non-blocking switch fabric, 40 Gbps bandwidth per line-card slot, redundant route processor modules (RPMs), redundant switch fabric modules (SFMs), redundant power and hot-swap of all key components; and the half-sized E600, which uses the same cards.
- Force10 Networks is headed by Prabhat K. (PK) Dubey. Prior to co-founding the company, Dubey was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at USVP. Before that, he was President and CEO of MMC Networks, a network processor company.