New Investors Allegis Capital, Financial Technology Ventures, and UV Partners Bring Vernier’s Total Capital Commitment to More Than $34 Million
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – Vernier Networks, a developer of innovative systems and software to protect, manage, and enhance wireless networks, today announced that it has received $24.2 million in Series C financing from top-tier investors. The completion of this round brings the company’s total funding to date to $34.5 million.
Technology investors Allegis Capital and Financial Technology Ventures (FTVentures) led the round and are joined by UV Partners, a West coast investment firm focusing on information technology and health care companies. Verniers existing investors Foundation Capital, Doll Capital Management, Masthead Venture Partners, and Weber Capital Management also fully participated in the Series C financing. The company will use the new capital to accelerate product development, expand sales and marketing efforts, and fund ongoing business operations.
The wireless LAN market is one of the few bright spots in networking today because of the tremendous strategic advantages that mobility offers to large corporations, said Doug Klein, CEO of Vernier Networks.Vernier is delivering a robust, powerful solution that addresses the demands for secure, flexible, and high-performance WLANs. The support we received from our Series C investors further validates the strength of Verniers solutions and its team.
The award-winning Vernier Networks System provides the foundation for building secure, scalable, and mission-critical 802.11 wireless networks. Vernier provides key services at the core of the wireless LAN, including fine-grained access control, centralized management, and seamless roaming to enable companies to deploy and manage 802.11 networks for hundreds or thousands of users roaming the network.
Vernier Networks is the first spin-out company of Packet Design, a networking technology company founded by entrepreneurs Judy Estrin and Bill Carrico. Since the company first launched products in September 2001, it has gained steady momentum in the marketplace, announcing enhanced product functionality in January 2002, an OEM partnership with SMC Networks in March 2002, and its high capacity 6000 series in April 2002.
New Investors Join Board of Directors
In conjunction with the Series C closing, Lara Druyan, principal for Allegis Capital and Scott Wu, managing member at FTVentures, will join Vernier’s board of directors.
As wireless LANs move from ad-hoc deployments to full-scale corporate rollouts, it is important that enterprises be prepared to handle all of the WLAN specific problems that will occur. Vernier Networks is taking a common-sense approach to building solutions for existing networks that reduce the complexity and cost of managing scalable, secure 802.11 wireless networks, said Lara Druyan, principal at Allegis Capital. Vernier has the team, assets, and execution required to be the dominant provider in the WLAN gateway market.
The deployment of wireless LANs in the enterprise is evolving into much more than security and management challenges-companies will need to make WLANs a strategic part of their overall infrastructure, said Scott Wu, managing member of FTVentures. Vernier Networks has brought together a team that we believe has the best blend of expertise in both networking and wireless industries to deliver customers products that provide the mobility, control, performance, and security found in traditional wired networks.
About Vernier Networks
Founded in March 2001, Vernier Networks develops innovative systems and software to protect, manage, and enhance wireless networks. Vernier’s user-aware, intelligent networking technology allows network managers to centralize wireless LAN usage policies, secure wireless network access at the edge, and deploy scalable wireless mobility across the enterprise. The Vernier Networks System won the Best of Show award at NetWorld+Interop Atlanta in October 2001, and the COMNET New Product Achievement Award for Wireless/Mobile in January 2002. A privately held company, Vernier Networks is the first spin-out company of Packet Design, a technology development company founded by entrepreneurs Judy Estrin and Bill Carrico. For more information, visit the Vernier Networks web site at: www.verniernetworks.com.
About Allegis Capital LLC
Allegis Capital LLC, an innovator in seed and early-stage venture financing in Silicon Valley, is focused on building unique partnerships between entrepreneurs and 32 global corporations. This strategy creates competitive advantage and unparalleled access to powerful networks of business relationships for new CEO’s and their teams. Founded in 1982 with the launch of the highly successful AVI Funds, Allegis Capital holds leadership positions in portfolio companies in enabling hardware and software technologies for broadband and wireless networks, enterprise solutions and in digital asset technologies. The Media Technology Ventures funds were established in 1996 and have over $500 million under management. The Firm is headquartered in Palo Alto, California with a Southern California office in Santa Monica. For further information about Allegis Capital’s corporate limited partners and portfolio companies, visit their website at www.allegiscapital.com.
About UV Partners
UV Partners, established in 1986, with offices in Salt Lake City, Seattle and Los Angeles, is a leading early stage private equity investment group with over $200 million under management. UV Partners provides the foundation for the development of early-stage entrepreneurial concepts into tomorrow’s industry-leading Information Technology and Life Science companies. The partners possess diverse but highly complementary industry and investment backgrounds. They share a hands-on approach and work collaboratively on each portfolio company over the life of the investment thereby providing each management team with a broad range of resources, experience and knowledge.
About FTVentures
Founded in 1998, FTVentures was the first venture capital firm in the U.S. to primarily invest in technologies that benefit the financial services industry. FTVentures now has more than $623 million in total capital under management and remains the primary investment firm for technology companies that develop products and services applicable to financial services. It invests primarily in mid-to-late stage private companies with developed technologies in three key areas: software and infrastructure solutions providers, electronic commerce enablers and payment sector technologies.
FTVentures-backed companies include 7-24 Solutions, Financial Engines, Corillian, Managed Objects, Caplin Systems, Xign, e-Security, PAYTRUST, CapitalStream, E-LOAN, Synchrologic, ValuBond Securities, ValiCert, CrossLogix, and ClearCommerce. FTVentures investors are 39 of the world’s leading financial institutions and include AIG, Bank of America Corporation, BNP Paribas, Charles Schwab, Credit Suisse Group, Deutsche Bank, Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), GE Capital, HSBC Holdings, Key Principal Partners, National City Corporation, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB), Standard Chartered Bank, US Bancorp and Wells Fargo.
Contacts
Kim Kellogg
PR MANAGER FTVENTURES
(415) 229-3000
