Wasserstein Ventures Leads Series A Investment in Multi-Terabit Switch Fabric Developer PetaSwitch Solutions, Inc.Business Editors NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 19, 2001 Wasserstein Ventures today announced that it is leading a $4 million series A venture capital round in PetaSwitch Solutions, Inc., a San Jose San Jose, city, United States San Jose (sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. , CA-based developer of multi-terabit switch fabric solutions for networking applications. Well known venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California with affiliate offices in more than 30 cities around the world and over $4.5 billion in capital commitments. is also investing. George Lauro, Managing Director of Wasserstein Ventures, will join the Board of Directors of PetaSwitch Solutions, Inc. He is a director on the boards of eight companies in the Internet infrastructure, photonics and communications IC space, to which he brings 16 years of experience developing, launching and managing technology businesses for IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) and Motorola. "Wasserstein Ventures believes that PetaSwitch's CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. Dipak Shah has assembled a superb team of communications silicon designers and system architects who are developing a switch fabric solution of extraordinary scalability and configurability. We believe PetaSwitch's products will form the heart of new classes of network equipment. They will offer system developers higher speed, performance and operational flexibility at very low power, cost and size," Lauro said. "We are delighted to work with Dipak and the team in building PetaSwitch into a leading communications IC vendor." Dipak Shah, CEO of PetaSwitch Solutions, Inc., said, "PetaSwitch is pleased that George Lauro and Wasserstein Ventures will be directly involved with our company. Wasserstein has an extensive portfolio of investments of excellent firms in the communications semiconductor, photonics and networking market. As an investor, Wasserstein brings a combination of technical and operating expertise and financial strength that will help PetaSwitch to bring our exciting new products to market." PetaSwitch Solutions, Inc. is Wasserstein's tenth investment in 20 months in leading-edge photonics and communications technology Noun 1. communications technology - the activity of designing and constructing and maintaining communication systems engineering, technology - the practical application of science to commerce or industry developers. In addition to PetaSwitch Solutions, Inc., Wasserstein Ventures has led investments in Qusion, Inc. (indium phosphide phosphide Any of a class of chemical compounds in which phosphorous is combined with a metal. Phosphides exhibit a wide variety of chemical and physical properties. Phosphides that are rich in metal have high melting points and are hard, brittle, and chemically inert; these monolithically integrated optical components); SandCraft, Inc.(high-performance control plane processors); HotRail, Inc.(terabit-speed interconnect technologies and switch fabrics, acquired by Conexant in May 2000); Cognigine (OC768 configurable network processors); Mockingbird mockingbird: see mimic thrush. mockingbird Any of several New World birds of a family (Mimidae) known for their mimicry of birdsong. The common, or northern, mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) can imitate the songs of 20 or more species within 10 Networks (voice-over-IP telephony switch platforms); Triscend Corporation (configurable system-on-chip solutions); Blaze Network Products (10 Gigabit/sec wave division multiplexing (spelling) wave division multiplexing - A common misnomer for wavelength division multiplexing. transceivers); and Peregrine Semiconductor Corp. (radio frequency integrated circuits Integrated circuits Miniature electronic circuits produced within and upon a single semiconductor crystal, usually silicon. Integrated circuits range in complexity from simple logic circuits and amplifiers, about 1/20 in. (1. for wireless communications and networking applications). Wasserstein also participated in the most recent financing round of World Wide Packets, a developer of gigabit ethernet solutions for fiber-to-home applications. About Wasserstein Ventures Wasserstein Ventures, the venture capital affiliate of Wasserstein & Co., LP, manages $300 million of venture capital targeted at innovative technology start-ups. Wasserstein Ventures actively helps build successful companies in communications, semiconductors, networking, digital media and Internet infrastructure. Wasserstein Ventures offers a unique blend of technological, operational and corporate finance expertise and a strong global relationship network. Wasserstein Ventures invests independent of geography and has offices in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , San Francisco, and Palo Alto. Wasserstein Ventures has invested in more than 30 companies since 1996. About Wasserstein & Co., LP Wasserstein & Co., LP is a New York and California-based merchant banking firm with approximately $2 billion under management in a variety of private equity activities including leveraged buyouts and venture capital investments. The firm's leveraged buyout funds specialize in the media, consumer products and business services areas, among others. Representative leveraged transactions include All-Clad Cookware, American Lawyer Media ALM (formerly American Lawyer Media), is a leading integrated media company, focused on the legal and real estate communities. ALM owns and publishes 33 national and regional magazines and newspapers focused on the legal and real estate communities, including Holdings, Element K, Imax, Maybelline and The Daily Deal. About PetaSwitch Solutions, Inc. PetaSwitch Solutions, Inc. was formed in November 2000, to develop multi-terabit switch fabric silicon for metropolitan area networks and wide area networks. The chip set architect is composed of a Virtual Queue Manager (VQM VQM Visual Quantum Mechanics VQM Video Quality Model VQM Voice Quality Metric VQM Visual Quality Metrics VQM Voice Quality Metrics VQM Voice Quality Monitor VQM Video Quality Measurement ) and a Concurrent Switch (CSW CSW Commission on the Status of Women CSW Christian Solidarity Worldwide CSW Clinical Social Worker CSW College of the Southwest (New Mexico) CSW Cambridge SoundWorks (audio manufacturer) ). They are differentiated from all other switch fabric chips by three patented features: 1) A request/grant protocol, 2) A three-stage intelligent flow control mechanism and 3) A spatial multicasting scheme. The chips can be replicated to obtain higher numbers of ports and/or higher bandwidth of the ports. Port speeds from OC-48 (2.5 Gbps) to OC-3072 (160 Gbps) can be accommodated to produce switches with over 5 Tbps bandwidth. The simplicity of the architecture allows switch manufacturers (e.g.- Edge Routers, MAN Switches and WAN Core Switches) to produce highly reliable, available and scalable products more cost effectively than in the past. |
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