Cisco competitor 128 Technology today announced it has closed $21.5 million in Series C funding, bringing the total capital raised to date to $57 million. Investors in the round included G20 Ventures, which backed the networking software firm with its first fund, according to the Boston Business Journal. Other investors were executive management members and current employees of 128 Technology, and individual investors.
The money will be used to grow the company's global presence and accelerate the expansion of the 128T Networking Platform, a sort of "smart router" that manages intelligently the Internet traffic. Since the smart router technology is session-oriented, it optimizes the traffic by predicting what paths will be the most efficient for different packet types every time. As a result, the routing solution mitigates the need for enterprises and service providers to get more expensive standalone appliances, according to the company.
Among the early adopters of the 128T Networking Platform there are Revation Systems, a Minnesota company that provides a unified cloud communications system for over 300 customers, and NEC Networks Japan, Inc.
“The only reason we have networks is to deliver applications and services. Today's networks weren’t created with that in mind, and certainly weren’t designed to address the demands of cloud computing, mobile devices, or the near-infinite number of applications created each day,” said Andy Ory, co-founder and CEO of Burlington-based 128 Technology, in a statement. “Tomorrow’s networks must be built around sessions, the language of applications and services. 128 Technology has created the world’s first session-oriented router that delivers on the promise of a service-centric network that is simpler, more agile, more secure and more cost effective.”
Ory is also the co-founder and former CEO of Acme Packet, another networking company that went public in 2006 and was acquired by Oracle in 2013 for $2.1 billion.
“The 128 Technology team is about to transform the Internet by replacing last century’s router technologies with session-smart routing that is purpose-built for the demands we place on our networks today,” said Bob Hower, co-founder and partner at G20 Ventures, in a press release.
Founded in 2014, 128 Technology - one of BostInno's 17 tech companies to watch in 2017 - has more than 100 employees. Last year, Xconomy reported that employees own 78 percent of the company.
