Big Switch Networks adds Dan Warmenhoven and Gary Morgenthaler to the Board along with raising $48.5m in funding

– USA, CA – Big Switch Networks™, the leader in bringing hyperscale-inspired networking to data centres worldwide, today announced it has closed its Series C round and raised $48.5M in total growth financing. The financing includes participation from both new and existing investors, including Morgenthaler Ventures, Silver Lake Waterman, Index Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Accton, CID Group, MSD Capital, among others. Since its founding in 2010, Big Switch has secured $94M in total funding.

Additionally, Big Switch has named former NetApp CEO, Dan Warmenhoven, as well as seasoned venture capitalist Gary Morgenthaler to its Board of Directors.

The financing comes as the company continues to drive adoption, including more than 300% growth in 2015 with customer wins across the US, APAC and EMEA regions, in verticals including tech, financial services, government, service providers, and higher education. The company has two products and three use cases, which have played a critical part in its growth, including accelerated adoption with Enterprise and Carrier customers of both Big Monitoring Fabric, a next generation network monitoring fabric, as well as Big Cloud Fabric,the industry’s first data center fabric built using whitebox or britebox switches and SDN controller technology.

“I am pleased that our performance continues to earn the trust of our customers, partners, and investors, all of whom believe in our mission to disrupt the status quo of networking,” said Douglas Murray, CEO, Big Switch Networks. “Dan Warmenhoven’s knowledge and operational experience scaling NetApp from hyper-growth startup through maturity will be invaluable as Big Switch continues to scale and as we introduce our core products to new customers in more markets around the world. I am also thrilled to have Gary Morgenthaler join the board to share his invaluable experience as one of Silicon Valley’s pre-eminent investors.”

According to IHS Research, enterprise SDN adoption is expected to grow from 6% to 23% in 2016 [source]. Big Switch will use its latest funding round to continue to scale the company and expand geographically, as well as expand its reach within markets already deploying next generation Data Center networking, which IHS Research estimates will reach $13 billion in 2019, up from $781 million in 2014.
“Organizations can no longer ignore the advantages of software defined networking,” said Shawn K. O’Neill, Managing Director and Group Head, Silver Lake Waterman. “We believe Big Switch has differentiated technology in an extremely strategic category.”

“It is clear that the world is moving to the software defined data center (SDDC), and networking will play a pivotal part in this shift. I’m thrilled at the opportunity to provide guidance to help steer the company’s continued growth and success,” said Dan Warmenhoven, former CEO & Chairman, NetApp. “It is a critical growth period for the SDN industry as a whole and Big Switch has positioned itself as a leader in the SDN space, I’m excited to see what’s in store for the company this year and beyond.”

“I’ve been a strong supporter of Big Switch since day one, so it’s a thrill to join the board and make things official,” said Gary Morgenthaler, Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures. “My involvement with networking companies in Silicon Valley dates back to the beginning, and what Big Switch is doing is game changing. The company’s mission to bring hyperscale networking to a broader audience really resonates with me, and I look forward to working closely with Doug and his team to help however I can.”

“Big Switch is fundamentally changing the economics of datacenter networking and SDN,” said Mike Volpi, Partner, Index Ventures. “I have been impressed and pleased with the accelerating adoption and product / market fit of Big Switch’s solutions, and by the team’s relentless execution. This financing will fuel significant go-to-market acceleration and geographic expansion.”

“These investors have a track record of re-shaping the industries they touch. We have always had a dual mission of modernizing networking while building a great business, and this is a group that believes what we believe.” Kyle Forster, Founder, Big Switch Networks.

About Big Switch Networks

Big Switch Networks is the market leader in bringing hyperscale-inspired networking technologies to a mainstream data center audience. The company is taking three key hyperscale technologies — OEM/ODM bare metal and open Ethernet switch hardware, sophisticated SDN control software, and core-and-pod data center designs — and leveraging them in fit-for-purpose products designed for use in enterprises, cloud providers, and service providers. The company’s Big Monitoring Fabric is a feature-rich next-generation Network Packet Broker to monitor and protect existing networks, and Big Cloud Fabric is the industry’s most advanced open networking switching fabric intended for new data center pods such as OpenStack private cloud, VMware NSX, big data, and VDI.

About Silver Lake Waterman

Silver Lake Waterman is part of Silver Lake, the global leader in technology investing with over $26 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital and a team of approximately 100 investment and value creation professionals located around the world. Silver Lake Waterman focuses on providing flexible expansion capital to later-stage growth companies in the technology and technology-enabled industries.

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