Meru Networks Announces $27.6 Million In Round D Venture Funding

Meru Networks, the leader in infrastructure solutions that enable the All-Wireless Enterprise, recently announced that it has closed its latest round of venture funding, raising $27.6 Million in a Series D round led by leading global investment and technology development firm the D. E. Shaw group.  Other investors in this round include existing Meru investors Lehman Brothers, Clearstone Venture Partners, NeoCarta Ventures, BlueStream Ventures, Evercore Ventures and JumpStartUp Venture Fund.

“This round of funding will enable us to continue to expand our sales and marketing organizations as well as increase investment in further research and development innovation,” said Ihab Abu-Hakima, president and CEO of Meru. “Each of these initiatives will help Meru better support the growing number of enterprise customers looking to deploy and benefit from the industry’s most advanced wireless local-area network infrastructure solutions.”

In addition, two new members will join Meru’s Board of Directors, Andre Turenne, an executive of the venture capital unit at the D. E. Shaw group and Barry A. Newman, venture partner of NeoCarta Ventures. Turenne has 25 years of operating, technical and venture investment experience in the technology sector.  He previously served as a managing director at NeoCarta Ventures and as senior manager of strategic investments at Intel Capital, and in various technical, marketing, and sales management roles over the years. An experienced strategist, Newman has served as vice chairman of the Technology Group at Bear Stearns, the head of Global Technology Corporate Banking for Banc of America Securities, the head of Global Technology Corporate finance at Salomon Brothers and Salomon Smith Barney and was founder and CFO of Anthem Partners, a boutique merchant bank.

“As the industry moves toward the All-Wireless Enterprise, we’re confident that Meru will extend its lead as the category leader,” said Turenne. “Meru’s advanced architecture provides a level of performance assurance, quality and reliability that is unsurpassed, and demand continues to grow for the Meru solution around the globe.”

”Meru has made tremendous progress over the past year, achieving a significant level of market traction, with a dramatic acceleration of revenue growth and the addition of a large number of customers across a variety of industries and environments,” said Newman. “They are a strong competitor in the wireless LAN space, and with this investment we expect the next year to bring even greater growth to the company.”  

The Meru Wireless LAN System leads the industry in assured performance, security and quality of service for pervasive enterprise deployments of converged voice, data and video applications.

For more information, please visit www.merunetworks.com