Alopa Networks gets $15 m. funding

BANGALORE: Alopa Networks, a Silicon Valley startup company specializing in

broadband subscriber solutions for the cable, DSL, and wireless industries, has

received over $15 million in its first institutional round of financing. The

funds came from two venture capital firms, Summit Accelerator Fund and Lucent

Venture Partners. With the fresh infusion of funds, Wipro Ltd.’s 10 per cent

stake has been diluted.

Speaking about the investment, Alopa Networks vice president Vijaya Verma

said, "Support from such highly respected investment firms confirms that we

are on target with our business strategy. It also gives us the necessary capital

to move forward aggressively."

The company has also announced that it will begin shipping its flagship

product MetaServ this week.

Alopa Networks is also a part of India’s first broadband hub set up in

Bangalore by its founder and US-based angel investor Prakash Bhalerao. The hub,

consisting of Bhalerao’s three newly founded networking companies Alopa, Amber

and Ishoni Networks, will develop products and solutions for global internet

service providers (ISPs) and application service providers (ASPs). With a

combined investment of $250 million, raised through 2-3 rounds of venture

capital funding, the 30,000 sq. ft. broadband hub will be India’s

first-of-its-kind center, housing the three networks and their labs. Of the

three companies, Ishoni builds broadband engines for OEMs and service providers

to offer secure voice and Internet access over a single connection. Amber will

shape the optical Internet with the most advanced, telecommunications equipment.

On the launching of the hub on Friday, inaugurated by Karnataka chief

minister S M Krishna earlier in the day, Bhalerao said that the cumulative

investment in his three promoted companies would be about $30 million in the

form of infrastructure and communication facilities, besides a pool of top-end

talent in hardware and software technologies.