Iamba networks has secured a $7 million round from previous investors Pitango Venture Capital, Cedar Fund, Giza Venture Fund and UK-based Kreos Capital. The company develops chips for telecommunications, specifically Gigabit Passive Optical Networking (GPON), a technology that aims to replace DSL.
I admittedly don’t know too much about this technology, so I did some research online. It turns out that telcom carrriers face bandwidth problems due to the use of the old DSL networks which are based on copper. Now, carriers are moving to passive optical network (PON) technology, that facilitate “delivery of new bandwidth-intensive “triple play” (voice/VoIP, Internet and television/video) services over highly cost effective passive optical networks directly to the homes and business locations of individual subscribers“.
According to the official press release, iamba Networks will use the funding to enhance its product portfolio , increase the Sales and Customer Support teams, and expand its reach to new regions.
Ori Israeli, Managing Director of Giza Venture Capital said:
“Over the last six months iamba has demonstrated significant traction in the global GPON market as demonstrated by its recent successes in Korea, where a large volume of GPON CPEs will be produced and deployed. We believe the company’s product line is well positioned to continue securing strategic design wins worldwide”
Founded in 2000, the company is headquartered in Cupertino, CA with an R&D center in Israel. The company is led by CEO Moshe Nattiv and founder Amit Preuss who serves as the GM in Israel. Iamba brought its first GPON solution to the public marketplace in 2007 and secured a lead in the Asian market and has recently announced plans to expand its precense in Europe.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
