Calient Networks Boosts Fourth Funding Round to $35 Million; Gaining Strength in Telecom Recovery, Photonic Switching Leader Announces Oversubscribed Second Close.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2004

Calient Networks, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent, carrier-class photonic switching systems and software, today announced the second closing of its fourth financing round, raising an additional $15 million to complement its $20 million first closing announced in January 2004.

New investors Wall Street Technology Partners and DuPont Capital Management have joined Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, TeleSoft Partners and Sofinnova Ventures, existing investors who also allocated capital for this second close.

"Calient's track record in live carrier networks has positioned the company extremely well as the preferred choice for funded deployments and new applications," stated Bill Stensrud, Calient Networks Board Chair and General Partner, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital.

"The company's leadership and execution in the critical Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching (GMPLS) protocol suite has catapulted it ahead of closed optical architectures and those who support the standard but have not implemented it," added Adam Lichtenstein, Partner with Wall Street Technology Partners. "This protocol is extremely significant for international carriers, where deployment growth rates are stronger than those in domestic markets."

"We are impressed by the long view and maturity of market vision from this management team and its partners," emphasized John VanderVort, Director with DuPont Capital Management. "Calient represents one of very few who really understand the cyclical nature of the telecom market and its technology adoption curves. They are therefore primed to capitalize on global optical systems demand at this point."

The company's photonic switching systems and subsystems have been optimally configured to address global telecom, research, commercial video and governmental networks and mainstream applications. The company is engaged in numerous US and international RFPs, as well as expanded deployments for existing customers.

"We are putting even more distance between our lead position in the rebounding market and any challengers trying to deliver a comparable value proposition," stated Charles Corbalis, Calient Networks co-founder and CEO. "Our systems have now been operating in commercial networks for over two years, demonstrating categorically that MEMS optical switching meets the rigorous reliability requirements of service providers. Our PXC and PX switches are interoperating today with dozens of complementary vendor network elements. Our reliability, economics, and flexibility to meet optical interconnection requirements are unmatched, and would require hundreds of thousands of development man-hours and hundreds of millions of investment dollars by others to replicate."

About Calient Networks, Inc.

Calient Networks is a leading provider of intelligent, carrier-class photonic switching systems and software that help service providers scale their networks for expanding bandwidth demands and deliver new wavelength services. Calient's DiamondWave(TM) switching system and GMPLS-powered networking innovations provide a seamless, 'opto-electronic-to-photonic' migration path that is non-disruptive to legacy operations, highly cost-effective, and an enabler to revenue-generating optical services. Calient is shipping its DiamondWave PXC systems and PX switching subsystems to production networks, labs and OEMs worldwide. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California. Additional engineering and manufacturing operations are located in Santa Barbara, California, while MEMS design and fabrication operations are located in Ithaca, New York. For additional information about Calient, visit http://www.calient.net.

Calient, the Calient Networks logo, the DiamondWave logo and "Where Innovation Comes to Light" are registered trademarks of Calient Networks, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Calient Networks and DiamondWave are trademarks of Calient Networks, Inc. All other marks used in this press release are the property of their respective owners.