Networking Startup Pensando Raises $145 Million in Series C Funding
16 Ottobre 2019 - 08:32PM
Dow Jones News
By Colin Kellaher
Pensando Systems, a networking startup launched by Cisco Systems
Inc.'s famed "MPLS" team, has raised $145 million Series C funding
round led by Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE) and Lightspeed
Venture Partners and has named long-time Cisco chief John Chambers
chairman.
The San Jose company, which has been operating in stealth mode,
also unveiled its flagship software-defined edge services platform
that it said will compete with the Nitro system from Amazon.com
Inc.'s (AMZN) Amazon Web Services cloud unit.
Pensando said the funding, which brings the total amount raised
to $278 million, follows a $71 million founder-led Series A round
and a $62 million customer-led series B round.
Pensando said it will use the funding to accelerate engineering,
operations and go-to-market activities.
Former Cisco executives Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, Luca Cafiero
and Soni Jiandani, who created some of the company's biggest hit
products, launched Pensando in 2017 after resigning from Cisco in
an apparent disagreement with their roles under a reorganization
under Chuck Robbins, who succeeded Mr. Chambers as CEO.
The team, dubbed MPLS after the initials of their first names,
became wealthy by forming product-development startups that Cisco
first funded and then later acquired in a strategy favored by Mr.
Chambers, who ran Cisco for two decades.
Mr. Chambers, who stepped down as CEO of Cisco in 2015 and
retired as chairman in 2017, went on to launch a venture-capital
fund, JC2 Ventures, with $100 million of his own money and invested
in Pensando in an earlier round.
Another former Cisco executive, Randy Pond, later joined
Pensando as chief financial officer.
In addition to Hewlett Packard and Lightspeed, Pensando said its
investors include Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The company also has
partnerships with Oracle Corp. (ORCL), NetApp Inc. (NTAP) and
Equinix Inc. (EQIX).
Pensando said its platform delivers highly programmable
software-defined cloud, compute, networking, storage and security
services wherever data is located.
The company said Mark Potter, Hewlett Packard's chief technology
officer, and Barry Eggers, a Lightspeed founding partner, have
joined its board.
-Don Clark contributed to this article.
Write to Colin Kellaher at colin.kellaher@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 16, 2019 14:17 ET (18:17 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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