At a time when capital is scarce, it's an anomaly that a telecom vendor could get any kind of capital funding, yet last-mile vendor Calix has done just that. The Petaluma, Calif.-based vendor announced today that it raised $100 million in financing and added three new members to its company board. This latest financing round includes $50 million from existing Calix investors and $50 million in debt financing with the Silicon Valley Bank. As part of its latest financing process, Calix added Michael Marks of Riverwood Capital, Adam Grosser of Foundation Capital, and Robert Finzi of Sprout Group to its board of directors.
Not surprisingly, Calix wants to leverage the funding to better position itself to win accounts with service providers vying for a piece of the $7.2 billion U.S. Broadband Stimulus program. Since the company officially launched in 2000, Calix has won over not only smaller tier 2 operators such as Canby Telcom [1], but also large tier two ILECs, including CenturyLink (formerly Embarq) and Windstream for its Unified Access Infrastructure products. Beyond the broadband stimulus, Calix also wants to target other expansion opportunities outside of the ILEC space, including business with CLECs, municipalities, and developers, as well as international carriers and cable MSO Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) deployments via Radio Frequency over Glass (RFoG) technology.
"The Calix strategy to date has been about solid execution," said Adam Grosser, partner at Foundation Capital and new member of the Calix board of directors in a release. "Calix approaches its targeted markets in a disciplined and efficient manner, and has systematically become the clear leader in its addressed market. We see an inflection point in the market that presents unique prospects for the company, and are excited to help Calix capture this growth opportunity."
For more:
- see the official release here [2]
Related articles
Calix and Hatteras bond over the broadband stimulus [3]
Prime Time for Salt Lake City means MPEG-4 [4]
Links:
[1] http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/attention-broadband-providers-theres-gold-behind-demarc-point/2009-08-24
[2] http://www.calix.com/news/press_releases/CalixPressRelease20090831.html
[3] http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/calix-and-hatteras-bond-over-broadband-stimulus/2009-08-03
[4] http://www.fierceiptv.com/story/prime-time-salt-lake-city-means-mpeg-4/2009-07-06