Colubris optimized WLAN switching solutions lead new category of distributed intelligent architectures

Colubris Networks, the pioneer in optimized wireless LAN (WLAN) switching systems, announced recently $14 million in new funding. This funding round fuels the company’s rapid growth and expanding market share, which is driven by strong demand in targeted enterprise and service provider vertical markets. Colubris WLAN solutions lead a new industry product category that enables widespread deployment of mobile voice services and migration to next generation, high performance WLANs.

All current Colubris investors participated in the new round, including Prism VentureWorks, GrandBanks Capital, DCM - Doll Capital Management, Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds, The Telecommunications Development Fund and The Business Development Bank of Canada.

“Colubris has achieved record revenue levels and exceeded all financial metrics this year,” notes Board Chairman Bill Seifert of Prism VentureWorks. “Its growing enterprise presence is a key factor in this success. The Board of Directors is very excited about the company’s positioning as a category leader within a rapidly growing market and the successful execution of its business strategy.”

With over a year’s head start, Colubris offers the industry’s first optimized WLAN switching system – a comprehensive infrastructure for delivering truly scalable mobile voice, data and video applications. Colubris pioneered this new WLAN category, which couples distributed intelligence with centralized control and management, in order to address the scalability, performance and QoS limitations inherent in first generation centralized WLAN switch architectures. Industry watchers believe that enterprises will encounter these limits as voice over WLAN applications become widespread and next generation 802.11n products become readily available.

The Colubris optimized WLAN switch provides a complete solution for fixed mobile convergence applications, where true voice quality and massive scalability cannot be compromised. Earlier this year, the inherent performance and scalability advantages of Colubris’ distributed intelligent architecture drew Alcatel to select Colubris solutions for its deployment in nationwide fixed mobile convergence applications. The solution is in trials with several tier 1 carriers around the globe.

Colubris’ expansion is well timed to the market’s growth cycle, according to industry analysts. "We expect the enterprise WLAN market to demonstrate very strong growth, driven by new adoptions, as well as by factors such as expanding user populations and deployments, the convergence of voice services, and migration to the 802.11n standard. These factors all contribute to a greater than 30% compound annual growth rate through 2010," noted Dell’Oro Group analyst Elmer Choy.

With over 1,500 customers worldwide, Colubris holds top market share positions in the service provider, hospitality and transportation market segments. This latest financing will extend leadership in these sectors, as well as increase sales within manufacturing, healthcare, education and other vertical enterprise markets. Following the appointment of several key sales executives earlier this year, the company is expanding distribution within these markets via enterprise resellers in Asia, Europe and North America.