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GiantLoop Closes on $40 Million

Startup GiantLoop Network Inc. highlighted an emerging market yesterday in announcing its plans to offer an optical alternative to large enterprises.

GiantLoop has scored $40 million in funding from Greylock, Roger Marino, and Optical Ventures LLC. It will be using the cash to prepare a suite of services, including optical integration and managed optical networks, for large enterprises in the U.S.

Up to now, most companies involved in optical integration have focused on the carrier market. But GiantLoop joins a growing number of service providers and vendors who see big opportunities in the enterprise space.

"We're looking for customers in the Fortune 250. We'll assess their bandwidth needs for data networks and storage and devise a solution that lets companies centralize their activity at one site," says Jon Oltsik, VP of corporate marketing and strategy.

Financial companies with big online trading divisions, for instance, often have large, multisite intracompany networks. These nets comprise multiple leased lines, often from different carriers. The lines are used to link geographically dispersed server clusters, to connect data centers in redundant configurations for backup, or to link data centers with storage-area networks (SANs).

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