US : BridgeWave Communications announced it has received $10 million in Series 4 funding. This round was co-led by Intel Capital and a new investor, Core Capital, with participation from prior round venture capital firms Cipio Partners, SDL Ventures, and Merifin Capital.
BridgeWave will use the funding to extend the company's position in gigabit wireless enterprise and fixed operator networks into the next generation gigabit mobile backhaul space. This move will help address the data transport challenges facing 4G WiMAX and Long Term Evolution (LTE) deployments.
“As WiMax deployments continue to gain momentum, there needs to be a major push to expand backhaul capacity in order to support high bandwidth requirements, particularly in high-density metro areas,” said Sriram Viswanathan, director, Mobility Sector, Intel Capital. “BridgeWave is well-positioned to address this need as their technology provides full line-rate gigabit speeds and utilizes the wide spectrum available between 60 GHz and 90 GHz.”
“The vast increases in mobile data traffic enabled by 3G and 4G technologies, including WiMAX and LTE, will not be fully realized without a corresponding increase in backhaul transport capacity,” says Tom Wheeler, managing director at Core Capital and former CEO of the CTIA. “BridgeWave’s technology is poised to play an important role in delivering mobile backhaul capacity, when fiber optic base station connectivity is unavailable.”
As a result of the financing, Pascal Luck, managing director at Core Capital will be joining the BridgeWave board of directors.
"As operators look to make 4G WiMAX and LTE networks a reality, they first need to address the roadblocks associated with them—one being the shortage of mobile backhaul to accommodate customer demand for bandwidth-intensive data services," said Andy Fuertes, senior analyst at Visant Strategies. "This being the case, gigabit fixed wireless technologies from companies like BridgeWave are poised to meet the growing need for 4G mobile backhaul and play a crucial role in energizing WiMAX and LTE.”
The strong response for BridgeWave’s gigabit wireless solutions will continue to grow as organizations and carriers look to wireless connectivity as a highly viable alternative to fiber. The total addressable market for high capacity, short range wireless products is growing 60 percent per year, according to an EJL Wireless Research report from September 2007.
“We thank Intel Capital for their investment and welcome Core Capital to the BridgeWave team,” said Amir Makleff, president and CEO of BridgeWave Communications. “This round of funding ensures that BridgeWave will have all the means necessary to address the requirements of first-tier mobile network operators, enabling the transition to next generation mobile deployments worldwide.”
