Native Networks, a start-up headquartered in London with R&D in Petah Tikva, Israel, raised $11.5 million in third round funding for its metro Ethernet over SONET/SDH solutions. The company’s platforms can transport and aggregate Metro Ethernet packets alongside legacy circuits/TDM services in their “native” form over existing optical networks. The equipment can support Layer-2 Metro Ethernet services such as Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS). The new funding was led by Infinity and JVP. Other existing investors taking part in the round were Alta Berkeley Venture Partners, Anschutz Investment Company, Apax Partners, Delta Capital Investments, Israel Seed Partners, SkyPoint Capital Corporation, and Soros Private Equity Partners. Native Networks has raised $39.5 million to date.
http://www.nativenetworks.com
- In February 2003, Alcatel announced a partnership with Native Networks under which it is leveraging Native Networks’ Metro Ethernet technology to introduce enhanced transport and aggregation of Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, and Gigabit Ethernet services, along with Packet Ring functionality, for its Optical Multi-Service Nodes (OMSN) equipment. The companies said these new, managed Ethernet features could be introduced incrementally through an add-on card to existing OMSN networks, or equipped as needed in new installations.