Blade Network Secures $10 Million Funding Round Led by NEC and Juniper Networks

BLADE Network Technologies, Inc., in data center networking, has closed a strategic Series B funding round with new investors led by NEC Corporation along with Juniper Networks, Inc., and a third technology industry leader as a silent investor. Garnett & Helfrich Capital, BLADE’s founding investor, is completing the round with its reinvestment. Hajime Fukuzawa, chief manager, Client and Server Division of NEC Corporation, will join BLADE’s Board of Directors.

This funding round values the company at $230 million. BLADE will use the investment to accelerate research and development and expand global sales and marketing. The company also announced today that it closed a record fiscal quarter on July 31 and has surpassed a six-millionth Ethernet switch port installation milestone. Despite the challenged global economy, BLADE remains on track to deliver another year of strong growth.

“We are proud that world-class companies have joined our founding investor Garnett & Helfrich Capital to back our vision of revolutionizing high-speed networking for the world’s largest data centers,” said Vikram Mehta, president and CEO, BLADE Network Technologies. “Since we established BLADE Network Technologies as an independent company in 2006, we have achieved impressive growth and an unsurpassed series of technology and industry firsts, as well as establishing ourselves as the market leader in cloud-ready networking.”

Mehta added: “This strategic investment from world leaders will fuel the acceleration of our pace-setting business performance as our committed team of BLADErs continues to delight our customers.”

“BLADE Network Technologies’ Ethernet switches provide the essential network infrastructure for our NEC SIGMABLADE blade server products,” said Hajime Fukuzawa, chief manager, Client and Server Division of NEC Corporation. “The company has demonstrated its capabilities to deliver the high-performance and energy-efficient data center networking that our customers demand. We see a bright future for BLADE as one of the most innovative leaders in high-speed data center networks and are proud to be the lead investor.”

“BLADE is well aligned with Juniper Networks in our commitment to reduce the total cost of network ownership while providing the high performance, scalability and virtualization required by today’s dynamic data center environments,” said David Yen, executive vice president and general manager, Fabric and Switching Technologies Business Group at Juniper Networks. “We are delighted to invest in BLADE Network Technologies to address some of the most challenging connectivity needs for next-generation networks.”

“Under the vision and leadership of Vikram Mehta, BLADE Network Technologies has grown into an outstanding performer by leveraging trusted alliances with global IT leaders and with more than 300 of the Fortune 500 companies,” said David Helfrich, chairman of BLADE Network Technologies and managing director of Garnett & Helfrich Capital. “BLADE provides its broad enterprise customer base with a compelling alternative for their most demanding networking requirements and has continued to outperform the industry even in today’s tough economic climate.”

BLADE Company Overview
BLADE Network Technologies delivers its Cloud Ready Network Architecture solutions for next-generation data centers–where virtual-machine awareness, ultra-high performance, extremely low latency, simplified management, lower cost and energy efficiency are of paramount importance.

“Many organizations are making real and lasting changes in their data center architecture, which provides new opportunities for companies such as BLADE Network Technologies,” said Paul Mansky, principal and senior equity analyst for Data Center Infrastructure at Canaccord Adams, Inc. “BLADE provides the networking solutions that support today’s multi-vendor, virtualized data center environments, while providing a compelling combination of performance with lower total cost of ownership.”

Vikram Mehta established BLADE Network Technologies as a division of Nortel in 2002, and spun it out as an independent company with the financial backing of Garnett & Helfrich Capital in February 2006. Through its partnerships with HP, IBM, NEC and Verari Systems, the company has emerged as the leading supplier of Ethernet switches for blade servers, one of the top 10 providers of 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches, and holds a commanding market share lead over Cisco in blade server networking.

In addition to its OEM products, BLADE’s RackSwitch family, based on silicon solutions from Broadcom and Fulcrum Microsystems, is the industry’s most advanced top-of-rack switching solution, offering the industry’s lowest latency, lowest power and best price/performance. The company recently pioneered new ground with the industry’s first 1,000 port Ethernet VMready switch and first FCoE-ready blade server switch. BLADE has championed the concept of ‘Rackonomics’ – a way for enterprises to scale out their data centers more affordably and efficiently by duplicating racks of servers and storage with connectivity through BLADE’s embedded and top-of-rack switches.

The company has received many awards, including EE Times‘ ACE Award for Startup of the Year, Red Herring Global 100, and the first networking company to win AlwaysOn’s ‘Going Green 100’ award. BLADE’s president and CEO, Vikram Mehta, was recognized with the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year award for Northern California in 2009.

BLADE Network Technologies employs nearly 200 people in its Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters, BLADE Network Research (BNR) development subsidiary in Ottawa, Canada, and sales and support operations throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), as well as in Asia Pacific (including Australia, China, Japan and Korea).