CrossFiber, an emerging developer of photonic switches targeting both data center and service provider networks, on Tuesday announced it secured $13.4 million in Series D funding.
The San Diego-based vendor said that most of the funds will be used to expand its manufacturing capacity to address customer demand for its LiteSwitch photonic switch line.
Southern Cross Venture Partners, the lead investor in this round, was joined by new investors New Venture Partners, Arsenal Venture Partners and existing investors Back Bay Management and PacifiCap.
CrossFiber focus on the data center and next-gen optical services--two key areas of growth in the telecom industry that require continuing innovations. The vendor has been responding to these needs with a line of ROADM subsystems, automated fiber cross-connects that can scale up to 512 x 512 ports for automated fiber patch panel applications, and test and measurement subsystems.
In the data center, the advent of cloud services and initiatives by enterprises to offload various functions to a third party--such as a data center provider like Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX) or a traditional service provider like CenturyLink's (NYSE: CTL) Savvis or Verizon (NYSE: VZ)--is creating opportunities for vendors to supply high speed optical and lower power devices to interconnect data center sites and tie together equipment at each site.
Likewise, the drive in the service provider community to move toward 100G optical in their core long-haul and metro networks means they will need more efficient ROADM and wavelength cross-connects (WXCs) to power these systems during this transition.
For more:
- see the release
Special Report: In detail: Tracking the 100G path
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