Cambridge Broadband Networks funding round takes total to $92m
Cambridge Broadband Networks has closed a $16.5m (£10.5m) funding round taking the total it has raised since founding in 2000 to over $92m.
The network equipment developer and maker started life as purely a broadband access play but has enjoyed explosive growth since making a concerted push into the cellular backhaul market in 2007.
The company was ranked the 36th fastest growing tech firm in the UK in this year's Deloitte Fast 50, recording revenue growth of 864% over the past five years.
Cambridge Broadband Networks reports that the funding round was oversubscribed and attracted a "significant contribution" from two new investors, including the first investment by the newly created Samsung Ventures Europe. The investment from Samsung Ventures is the precursor to the development of "an important new channel to market," the firm says.
The round was also backed by existing investors Accel Partners, Adara, TVM Capital and Cambridge-based Amadeus Capital, which has participated in every one of the firm's funding rounds since its inception in 2000.
That a ten-year old start-up's seventh major venture capital funding round should be over-subscribed says a lot about the upside CBN still has within its sights, both within existing geographies - where the growth in smart phone usage and mobile conmputing is putting a strain on existing infrastructure - as well as in untapped global markets.
The company's VectaStar equipment allows traffic from high bandwidth mobile services to be 'backhauled' from base stations and masts back into cellular operators' core networks.
The deal is also a positive reflection of the increasing investment activity that Cambridge companies are seeing, such as Plastic Logic, Veebeam and Ubisense.
Teresa M Vega, Cambridge Broadband Networks' Chairman, said: "Market analysts universally predict a dramatic rise in the requirement for innovative microwave backhaul solutions in response to exponential growth in consumer demand for mobile data services. Samsung and our other investors recognise that Cambridge Broadband Networks is ideally placed to meet that demand with a technically and environmentally superior solution that is highly efficient in its use of capital and operational resources."
The proceeds from the round will be invested in product development as well as sales and customer support to bolster its push into new geographical markets, Cambridge Broadband Networks says.
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