There are a number of different companies trying to make a business out of building open networking software. Among them is startup SnapRoute, which raised a $25 Million Series A round of funding on Feb. 7.
The Series A was led by Norwest Venture Partners and included the participation of Lightspeed Venture Partners and new investors AT&T and Microsoft Ventures.
“SnapRoute is disrupting the multi-billion-dollar networking market by fundamentally changing how networks are built and scaled today,” Rama Sekhar, partner at Norwest Venture Partners, said in a statement. “By disaggregating software from hardware, SnapRoute is offering flexibility that has historically eluded the networking industry.”
The idea of separating networking software from hardware is one that Facebook helped to launch with its Open Compute Project back in May 2013. Ever since, multiple startups and projects have emerged to help expand the idea of an open networking system.
Among the many efforts is the OpenSwitch project, which officially became part of the Linux Foundation in June 2016. In October 2016, SnapRoute contributed its open source network stack and management services to the OpenSwitch project.
“SnapRoute is fully committed to driving the project and enabling a future of open networking,” Jason Forrester, founder and CEO of SnapRoute, said at the time. “By taking a leadership role in delivering SnapRoute’s open source networking stack to the project, we are taking a meaningful step toward realizing the vision of a fully open network operating system.”
From a product perspective, SnapRoute calls its core system the FlexSwitch, providing networking services, visiblity and control all the way down to the chip level.
“As network operators who built and ran networks for some of the world’s leading brands, we understand the technology required for hyper-growth and scale and that not all companies have the luxury to build from the ground up on commodity hardware,” Forrester said. “We are excited for the next phase of the company and to expand our offering and customer base.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at Enterprise Networking Planet and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
