Bivio Networks has raised $16.5 million in fourth-round venture financing and signed a new original equipment manufacturer
The backing, which comes from previous Bivio investors Goldman Sachs, InterWest Partners, Storm Ventures and Venrock Associates, will be used for new product development, customer support and sales and marketing.
It will be enough to see the privately held company through to profitability in 2006, Elan Amir, president and CEO of the Pleasanton, Calif., firm, told internetnews.com.
Bivio’s network appliances, which are sold through OEMs, handle Internet Protocol
The programmable devices maximize the performance of applications and include firewalls, intrusion detection, routing and Voice over IP
While its product is aimed at large enterprise customers, Bivio will develop a version for mid-sized companies later this year, said Amir, who joined Bivio in 2003 as CTO. He previously served as CTO of OmniSky, a maker of wireless networking components for PDAs.
Bivio also announced that its Linux-powered appliance will be sold by network threat management specialist Demarc. Bivio’s 2000 platform will be sold as part of Demarcs Sentarus GX6 and GX8 network sensor appliances.
Financial terms of the agreement between Bivio and Carpinteria, Calif.-based Demarc were not disclosed.
“Bivio’s advanced IP service architecture has enabled us to make another breakthrough in our network monitoring capabilities with two additional Network Sensor appliances tailored to meet high traffic demands,” Brendan Rizzo, Demarc’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
Bivio, which means “crossroads” in Italian, was founded in 2000 and has 40 employees. It shifted its focus from the carrier market to the enterprise space after the telecom downturn.
