Ethernet Switch Chip Start-up Secures Another $21.5 Million

LONDON - Ethernet switch silicon provider Greenfield Networks Inc. has raised $21.5 million in a third round of private venture funding, bringing total investment in the Sunnyvale, California-based start up to $48 million.

The round was led by new investor JPMorgan Partners, and existing investors Sequoia Capital, Global Catalyst Partners and Walden International all participated.

Gary Smerdon, Greenfield's president and CEO, said bulk of the money will be used to aggressively pursue additional market opportunities and accelerate technology developments and expansion plans, and that this latest round should see the Greenfield reach profitability next year.

"We now have more than 10 customers who have designed next generation Ethernet switching systems using our Packetry architecture," said Smerdon.

Greenfield claims the Packetry range provides the most novel architecture for scaling performance from edge to core applications and is "the only merchant silicon in the industry to offer the combination of low-cost Gigabit Ethernet connectivity and rich features, such as full IPv6 routing, MPLS switching, scalable packet buffering, and scalable MAC, route and classification tables."