Intel leads $8.5M funding round for WAN virtualization startup

By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- 8/26/2008

Roseland, NJ-based WAN application acceleration provider Expand Networks said today it has secured $8.5 million in a funding round led primarily by Intel Capital and existing investors in order to supplement R&D of its next generation of WAN accelerators, specifically for virtualization and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and to help finance near-term technological acquisitions.

Expand believes it is the pioneer in the WAN optimization market and aims to help organizations simplify their IT infrastructure while delivering remote offices fast, reliable and secure access to networked applications, resulting in improved user productivity and cost-effective IT management.

Ashish Patel, managing director of Europe, Middle East and Africa at Intel Capital explained that with the rise of the distributed enterprise has come an increase in branch offices and the exponential growth of remote and mobile workers demanding access to centralized corporate resources, which has put pressure on WAN infrastructures to overcome disruptive latency issues in order to support an enterprise’s mobile computing strategy. “Our investment in Expand Networks will help them tackle these pressure issues and address a fast growing market opportunity,” he said in a statement.

“We are delighted Intel Capital has led this round of funding, which will give us further momentum in the growing WAN Optimization market and our leadership position within it. Market maturity combined with the changing economic climate has transformed WAN Optimization from being ‘nice to have’ to a ‘business necessity’ representing a great market opportunity for Expand to attack,” added Elie Barr, CEO of Expand Networks.

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