Wireless startup Meru Networks said Monday it raised $25 million in its latest round of funding, to help the company attract more customers from companies like Cisco.
The funding was the company’s fourth round of investment and brings the company’s total financing to $68 million.
The round was led by Lehman Brothers Venture Partners, and investors Clearstone Venture Partners, NeoCarta Ventures, BlueStream Ventures, JumpStartUp Ventures, Evercore Ventures, and Nissho Electronics Corporation also participated in the round.
The Sunnyvale, California-based company sells wireless networking equipment to businesses, healthcare organizations, government agencies and universities.
While the wireless local area network industry, coined WLAN, has been around for years, Meru says its equipment is next-generation and enables more users with a greater capacity, and enables voice services better than its competitors.
Total Converts
In an interview, Meru CEO Ihab Abu-Hakima said that every Meru customer was a former Cisco customer that the company had won over through its technology advances.
Mr. Abu-Hakima said the latest funding would help the company add sales support, R&D, and marketing resources to grow enough to compete with competitors like Cisco.
Cisco bought WLAN startup Airespace last year for $450 million, so an acquisition of Meru would be unlikely (see Airespace’s Disappearing Act).
Airespace’s Disappearing ActMeru’s networks are becoming popular with businesses and organizations that want to use wireless VoIP as the main method of phone service. Outside the
United States, Mr. Abu-Hakima said that 100 percent of its customers use the wireless network for a phone system, with both WiFi phones and dual WiFi-cellular phones.Inside the U.S., that number drops to 30 percent, given the phone companies in the U.S. have successfully stalled the dual WiFi-cellular market.Last year, Meru won a large public utility client in Japan―Osaka Gas―and Mr. Abu-Hakima said that network deployment is the world’s largest fixed mobile convergence deployment.
If Meru’s popularity rises in the U.S., its clients will likely be the first wave of adopters looking to utilize wireless VoIP, including the first uses of the cellular, WiFi convergence market.