Metro-Optix, a telecommunications network equipment provider, announced it has closed a third round of financing of approximately $54 million through the private placement of its newly authorized Series C Preferred Stock. The company previously announced, on an "interim" basis, $50M in third round funding on July 23, 2001.
Metro-Optix is lowering the "cost per bit" of the metropolitan optical networking segment by delivering service providers a next generation, "protocol agile" bandwidth manager called CityStream.
Van Wagoner Capital leads the third round with Palantir Capital as the other new participating investor. Repeat investors include JP Morgan Partners, InterWest, Sevin Rosen, Centerpoint, Bluestream, J W Seligman, Watsach and others. This third round brings the total amount of funding to $136 million since the company's founding in December 1999.
The additional funding comes after contract wins with customers such as Network USA, WirelessLand Technologies and others. Metro Optix is currently in several lab and field trials with other carriers, including several large ILECs/IXCs.
Metro-Optix will use the new investments to expand its product manufacturing plant, support increased customer traction, enlarge its customer support and sales organizations and provide additional capital for research and development.
About Metro-Optix:
Jointly headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and Allen, Texas, Metro-Optix is a privately held, optical networking equipment provider for metropolitan networks. For more information, visit www.metro-optix.com.