SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–July 22, 2003–Airespace, Inc., today announced that it has secured $22 million in series C funding, bringing the total investment in the company to more than $38million. Fidelity Ventures, the venture capital arm of Fidelity Investments(R), led the round.
Airespace also announced the appointment of Anne Mitchell, partner at Fidelity Ventures, to Airespace’s board of directors. Existing investors Battery Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Storm Ventures, Hotung Capital, and KTB Ventures completed the oversubscribed round.
The latest investment marked a significant increase in valuation for Airespace, which began shipping its wireless LAN (WLAN) products this April and has already announced significant customer sales and a major OEM agreement with NEC. This new funding will fuel Airespace’s continued growth in the enterprise WLAN market and fully funds the company to break-even.
“Fidelity Ventures has significant experience with enterprise IT infrastructure,” said Anne Mitchell, partner at Fidelity Ventures. “WLANs have been strongly received in the home networking and SOHO markets, and we now are seeing uptake among major enterprises. Airespace is best positioned to serve the rapidly growing enterprise sector based on its superior product architecture, strong customer traction, and clear strategic vision. Combined with the smart fiscal approach of its management team, we believe the company is best positioned to lead the enterprise WLAN systems market.”
“Fidelity Ventures’ knowledge of real-world enterprise networking environments makes them a valuable partner, helping us build the preeminent brand in this market,” said Brett Galloway, chief executive officer and president of Airespace.
“Airespace has adopted a fundamentally sound strategy of complementing the existing Ethernet infrastructure rather that attempting to replace it,” said David Passmore, research director at The Burton Group. “Airespace has distinguished itself from other WLAN vendors by incorporating dynamic RF intelligence in its system, helping to solve the hard wireless problems hampering widespread adoption in the enterprise.”
About Airespace, Inc.
Airespace is a market leader in the design and development of wireless networking platforms that support business-critical applications. The company’s AireWave Director(TM) Software provides dynamic RF intelligence for network optimization, air tight security, seamless mobility, and support for real-time applications, such as voice. With Airespace, enterprises can maximize the value of mobility by putting the air space to work.
For more information on Airespace and its products, visit www.airespace.com or call 408-635-2000.
About Fidelity Ventures
Fidelity Ventures, the venture capital arm of Fidelity Investments, has actively invested private equity in emerging information technology and telecommunications companies for more than 30 years. Many Fidelity Ventures-backed companies have gone public and/or have been merged with industry leaders, including: MCI (now Worldcom (Nasdaq:WCWEQ)), Continental Cablevision (now Comcast (Nasdaq:CMCSA)), Teleport (now part of AT&T (NYSE:T)), Nextel (Nasdaq:NXTL), GeoTel (now part of Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO)), Nexabit Networks (now part of Lucent (NYSE:LU)), ONI Systems and Wavesmith Networks (both now part of Ciena (Nasdaq:CIEN)) and COLT (Nasdaq:COLT). Fidelity Ventures has offices in Boston and London, and can be contacted at www.fidelityventures.com.
