BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--RIFT.io, today announced the completion of a $16 million series A round of funding, led by North Bridge Venture Partners with participation from other strategic investors. The funds raised will be used to continue the development of RIFT.ware, the company’s open source network virtualization platform, and expand its world-class product, design, and engineering teams, while growing its marketing and customer support capabilities.
RIFT.io was founded in 2014 by CEO Greg Alden, an industry veteran joined by fellow co-founders, CTO Tim Mortsolf and CDO Matt Harper. The company features a talented leadership team including CSO Tony Schoener; CFO Scott Bryce, and SVP, Business & Market Development Vincent Spinelli, who have decades of experience in networking and enterprise software and held senior management roles at Cisco, Starent Networks, Juniper, 3COM, Redback, EMC, Arrowpoint and Movik Networks. Headquartered in Burlington, MA with offices in San Jose, CA and Bangalore, India; RIFT.io specializes in open source, hyperscale network virtualization software that simplifies the development, deployment and management of virtual network services, applications and functions.
The RIFT.io founders believe that network services need to migrate from proprietary appliances to open, hyperscale networking software services in order for virtual network functions (VNFs) to be relevant in cloud networks that support Web, mobile, and IoT-centric applications. RIFT.io promises to fundamentally change the economics of the networking industry and help customers reduce complexity and accelerate service velocity.
“The walls between network product suppliers and network service consumers are disappearing. Our goal from day one was to build a platform that would provide everyone with the same capabilities and technology enjoyed by the largest networking technology companies,” said Greg Alden, chief executive officer of RIFT.io. “Robust Open Source components, high performance general purpose computing, and RIFT.ware make this a reality. Our software addresses the unique challenges and complexities of network applications and leverages the best of open source and hyperscale data center technology to bring innovation, lower cost and an emerging community of value-adding solution providers.”
Network applications and VNFs built with RIFT.ware combine the economics and scale of hyperscale data centers with the security and availability of carrier-grade network services. Companies can start with a single network application or service on a single virtual machine (VM) on any cloud platform and scale to any number applications, VMs, and locations on multiple clouds with no capacity constraints or distance limitations. This dramatically lowers the risks associated with rolling out new services, allowing providers and enterprises to easily trial and evolve services to determine what best meets the needs of customers.
“Benu Networks has been a leader in developing network solutions that embrace virtualization and cloud technologies,” said Dino Di Palma, CEO, Benu Networks. “Partnering with RIFT.io has sped our development of solutions for the connected home, helped us build a more robust, scalable virtual network application and allows us to target any customer on any cloud infrastructure, at any scale.”
Network function virtualization promises the same transformation in network applications that virtualization delivered to Web-based applications. Virtualization is now foundational to over $3 trillion in annual IT spending. The transformation in network applications, driven by the Internet of Things and the growth in the number of connected devices, will have an even larger impact and the pace of change will be unprecedented. According to Beecham Research, the world will be host to more than fifty billion device connections by the year 2020, emphasizing the importance of scalability, security and efficient connectivity1.
“At North Bridge, we invest in great ideas and great teams. It is rare to find a team that can adapt so easily to the changing market and technology requirements, especially a team has worked together for many years.” said Ed Anderson, managing general partner of North Bridge. “Our most successful portfolio companies have been the disruptors with bold ideas and the capability to achieve their potential. The pace of software innovation is changing everything and we are thrilled to be working with RIFT.io as a true partner to accelerate the transformation.”
Rift.io recently joined the Intel® Network Builders program in July, an ecosystem dedicated to accelerating the transition to SDN and NFV solutions based on industry open standards.
“NFV service orchestration will require increasing intelligence that can best determine how to take advantage of the underlying hardware capabilities and apply them to the right workload,” said John Healy, General Manager, SDN Division, Intel Corp. “By joining the Intel Network Builders program, RIFT.io will help to accelerate the adoption of NFV and enable service providers and enterprises to take advantage of key capabilities such as enhanced platform awareness (EPA) on Intel architecture.”
RIFT.io will be showcasing its software August 18th – 20th at the Intel Developer Forum being held at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco, CA. Come visit the company in booth # 163.
About RIFT.io
RIFT.io makes it simple for network service
developers, enterprises, and service providers to create, deploy, and
manage Web-scale network applications and virtual network functions
(VNFs). Network applications and services built with RIFT.io technology
combine the economics and scale of hyperscale data centers with the
security and availability of carrier-grade network services. RIFT.io is
a privately held, global company with offices in the United States and
India. For more information about RIFT.io, visit http://riftio.com/.
Follow us @RIFT_io.
About North Bridge
North Bridge Venture Partners and North
Bridge Growth Equity are active partners with entrepreneurs providing
seed-to-growth financing for innovative companies looking to disrupt big
markets. With nearly $4 billion in capital currently under management,
North Bridge partners, many founders themselves, work with entrepreneurs
to apply their expertise in the creation, operation and scaling of
market-leaders. The firm has funded more than 200 companies creating
many billions in market value. The firm has offices in Boston, MA and
Palo Alto, CA. To learn more about North Bridge go to www.northbridge.com.
Follow us @North_Bridge.
1 M2M World of Connected Services. 2009. Infographic. Beecham Research, Boston. Web. 22 Jul 2015.
