Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Solarflare Raises $26M

Irvine-based Solarflare Communications said today that it has raised an additional $26M in venture funding. The new round was led by Oak Investment Partners, and also included Foundation Capital, Accel Partners, and Amadeus Capital Partners. Solarflare is developing 10 Gigabit Ethernet semiconductors, including PHY and MAC chips. Solarflare's CEO, Russell Stern, told socalTECH that the new round would go towards new development, and to take its recently announced products into production. Stern said that the new round brings the company's total raised up to $126M. Asked about the firm's future fundraising plans, Stern told socalTECH that the round will not be the last for the firm, and that it expects it will raise a mezzanine round towards an IPO in the future. Solarflare's components are used in 10GBASE-T Ethernet over copper. The firm now has 125 employees, including 30 people in Cambridge, UK working on software development. More information »