Voltaire Nabs Cash Amid Speculation

Voltaire has clinched an additional $10 million of funding ahead of its predicted IPO, according to Israeli news reports, as rumors continue to circulate about the future of the InfiniBand specialist.

Technology Website Globes and newspaper Haaretz reported last night that Eric Benhamou, who was recently appointed to the firm's board of directors, contributed around $1 million to the round. (See Former Palm, 3Com CEO Joins Voltaire.)

Benhamou, the former CEO of Palm and 3Com, is head of venture capital firm Benhamou Global Ventures, and he also helped launch IP storage specialist Intransa. (See On 3Com's Storage Trail, 3Com's Enterprise Challenge, and Intransa Gets $2.7M.)

With attention once again focused on Voltaire's plans, spokeswoman Christy Lynch refused to divulge details of the vendor's funding and long-term strategy. "We dont comment on rumors," she says, adding that Voltaire does not share its financial information.

Last month saw rumors that Voltaire will raise $100 million in a third-quarter IPO. (See IPO Talk Strikes Voltaire.) Voltaire has reportedly chosen Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan as the lead managers for the Nasdaq offering, with RBC and Thomas Weisel as co-managers.The vendor, which sells grid switches and directors as well as IP and Fibre Channel routers, is reaping the benefits of growing interest in high-speed data centers, according to at least one analyst. "There's much better understanding of grid, not only in engineering and scientific deployments, but also in the commercial sector," says Mike Karp, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA).

He says grid deployments are driven by utility computing efforts that aim to boost the utilization of storage and server hardware. (See Savvis to Provide Reuters Platform, NLRB Picks Savvis, 3PAR, Incipient Team, Jacent Deploys 3PAR, and PG&E Targets Virtualization.) "When the hardware infrastructure is available and scalable, grid lends itself very well to the utility model," he says.

Certainly, grid computing, which was once the preserve of academics and cone-head government researchers, is popping up more in mainstream deployments. (See To Grid or Not to Grid, EMC Refreshes NAS, SAN, EMC Ties Into Oracle, and Storage Vendors Enhance SMI-S.) Despite this apparent growth, though, some users have lingering concerns about the technology, citing confusion about definitions of grid, as well as management hassles. (See Users Put Grids on the Grill.)

A Voltaire IPO would be the latest in a string of public offerings from storage vendors. Yesterday, for example, data center automation specialist BladeLogic filed its S-1 with the SEC for a public offering expected to raise $75 million.

Last month, data warehouse specialist Netezza filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). (See Netezza Files S-1, and Netezza Nudges IPO.) This followed similar moves from Mellanox, Riverbed, Isilon, Double-Take, and CommVault. (See Mellanox Exceeds IPO Hopes, Double-Take, Isilon Go Public, Riverbed Comes Out at $9.75, and CommVault Swims in Public Pool.)Users have already cited the low latency of InfiniBand as ideal for storage networking, although it remains to be seen whether the technology will match the popularity of Fibre Channel and Ethernet. (See Interop: Mixed Messages on InfiniBand and InfiniBand Goes Mainstream.)

Recent indications suggest InfiniBand may make its presence felt at least a bit more, particularly after the technology was identified as the fastest growing interconnect on the most recent Top 500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers. (See InfiniBand Take 2.)

The last few months have certainly been busy for Voltaire, which is looking to expand its international operations and recently announced a 10-Gbit/s Ethernet line card for its switches. (See Voltaire Expands Global Presence, Voltaire Opens China Office, Voltaire Expands to NY, Japan, Voltaire Opens in Germany, InfiniBand Vendors Embrace 10-GigE, and Voltaire Readies Switches.)

— James Rogers, Senior Editor Byte and Switch