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Telstra’s investment arm, Telstra Ventures, has led a US$43 million Series D capital raising round for open networking software vendor, Cumulus Networks, bringing the company’s total funding to date to US$129 million.
The Californian tech company revealed on 23 January that the Telstra-led funding round had successfully closed, saying it will use the funds to “massively expand” its sales force and invest in growing its marketing programs.
This expansion effort will be largely on reaching new customers in the Asia Pacific region as well as the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region – a move which is likely to see the vendor’s existing channel partner network expand in the local market.
The company said it also wants to expand its footprint within Fortune 500 enterprises and service providers, while continuing to focus on bringing innovative networking products to market.
Through its networking switching software, Cumulus Linux, Cumulus Networks aims to bring the automation, agility and scalability of web-scale networks to companies of all sizes.
For Telstra Ventures managing director, Mark Sherman, the latest funding effort represents another notch in the company’s ongoing strategy of investing in strategic, value-added businesses that show “strong market fit and growth potential”.
“In this case we had the advantage of being a Cumulus Networks customer first, which gave us several months of first-hand experience working with their products, services and team,” Sherman said.
“After that experience, we were eager to expand our partnership and invest in the company. Open networking is key to growing service provider capabilities and we are thrilled to have Cumulus join our portfolio of strategic, innovative companies,” he said.
In December last year, Telstra Ventures revealed it had completed a strategic investment in Ripcord, a US-based robotic digitisation company which specialises in document management.
The telco said at the time that it aims to roll out the solution to government and financial services customers across Australia.
