Networking Start-Up Nets $40M
(08/28/97; 2:30 p.m. EDT)
By John T. Mulqueen, InternetWeek
Six of the biggest networking companies in the world have invested a total of $40 million in a Mountain View, Calif., start-up that does not even have its product ready yet.
Lucent Technologies, Nortel, Ericsson, Siemens AG and Newbridge Networks through a joint venture, 3Com, and Worldcom each took about a 4 percent stake in Juniper Networks, said Scott Kriens, Juniper's chairman and CEO.
The cash infusion brings the total invested in Juniper since last September to $56 million. Juniper has a valuation of $165 million, so the $40 million just invested equals slightly more than 24 percent of the company, Kriens said.
Juniper is building a switch that will be used on the backbone and on the edges of the Internet to ensure that the carriers are able to provide the connectivity and quality of services businesses require to carry out electronic commerce, Kriens said.
"The switches will make possible quality of service and management of levels of service, policy management," he said. "High-speed routing is only a subset of what we are doing," he said.
Juniper will first bring its products to market and then introduce modules that the six investors can integrate into their own product lines, he said. Details on the products and the relationships with the investors will be disclosed by the end of the year, he said. |
