Report: Expand Nabs $10M

WAN optimization specialist Expand Networks has picked up $10 million in funding, according to a report on Israeli Website Globes.co.il.

Intel Capital has apparently joined existing investors Tamir Fishman Venture Capital, and Discount Investment Corporation in Expands latest tranche of funding, according to Globes.

Expand refused to comment on the funding rumors when Byte and Switch contacted the firm last night, although the round would take the firm’s total funding to well over $80 million.

The vendor picked up $21 million in an F round of funding just over a year ago, taking its total funding to $74 million. This week’s rumored top-up round would take this figure to a whopping $84 million.

Last year’s cash influx was primarily to boost Expand’s Asia-Pacific presence, particularly in China, Korea, and Australia, and followed the announcement of a partnership with Chinese technology firm Huawei-3Com (H3C).The vendor was also planning to grow its workforce from 150 to between 250 and 270 between then and now, mainly in areas such as R&D, sales, support, marketing, and managing OEM deals.

Expand, which recently launched a professional services operation,is one of the few WAN optimization startups not to have been swallowed up by another vendor.

The last few years, for example, have seen a slew of acquisitions in this space, including Blue Coat's $268 million purchase of Packeteer, F5's Acopia and Swan Labs acquisitions, Cisco’s purchases of FineGround and Actona, and Juniper’s $337-million Peribit deal.

Based in Roseland, N.J. and Tel Aviv, Expand Networks may be pulling in cash to reduce the likelihood of becoming acquisition fodder, or, alternatively, may simply be looking to give its technology a boost, at a time when the WAN optimization market is maturing.

Analyst firm Infonetics recently reported, for example, that the WAN optimization market dipped 2 percent sequentially in the first quarter of 2008, after three quarters in a row of strong double-digit growth. Q1 sales of enterprise routers and WAN optimization appliances were nonetheless up 58 percent year-over-year, underlining the continued popularity of the technology.Unit shipments of WAN optimization appliances are forecast to more than double between 2007 and 2010, according to the analyst firm.Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Byte and Switch's editors directly, send us a message.