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Ajay Mishra gets $20 M in mezzanine funding
By siliconindia
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Monday, 09 August 2004, 19:30 IST
SAN JOSE: Ajay Mishra co-founded Airespace Inc., a San Jose, CA-based provider of enterprise Wireless LAN products, has raised $20 million in mezzanine funding from existing investors including Battery Ventures, Fidelity Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Storm Ventures, Hotung Capital and KTB Ventures. The latest round takes the total investment in the company to $58 million.
Ajay Mishra, Airespace's Director-Market Development, earlier worked with Cisco and Motorola. Mishra holds an MBA in Marketing and Finance from the University of Chicago and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Southern Mississippi.
The latest round of financing will be used to provide working capital to accelerate Airespace's market expansion and march to cash flow profitability. It comes on the heels of an extremely successful year for Airespace, which included the following accomplishments:
Significant Customer Traction - Since first shipping product in April of 2003, Airespace has delivered wireless networks to several hundred enterprise customers, including Fortune 500 companies, hospitals, universities, arenas, airports, military facilities, and corporations throughout the world.
World Class Partners - Airespace has established global OEM agreements with Alcatel, NEC, and Nortel, three of the world's leading network equipment providers. In addition, Airespace has also established partnerships with D-Link Systems and Value Added Resellers (VARs), distributors, and support organizations throughout the world.
Global Corporate Expansion - Airespace has expanded its global operations with the opening of new offices in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe, and offices in Japan and throughout Asia to meet the global demand for enterprise WLAN systems.
Industry Recognition - Airespace has won 19 industry awards and industry distinctions over the last year. The company has never lost a head-to-head product bakeoff, has secured numerous "Product of the Year" awards, and earned several distinctions as a "company to watch" in leading industry publications.
"This latest round of funding is a strong validation of Airespace's enormous accomplishments over the past several years," said Brett Galloway, chief executive officer and president of Airespace. "Ongoing support and guidance from our investors will help Airespace continue to demonstrate success in a rapidly growing enterprise WLAN market."
In addition, Airespace announced today the promotion of Robert Tinker to vice president of business development. In this role, Bob will continue to create and oversee world class business and technology partnerships that will complement the Airespace platform and facilitate the company's ability to execute in an explosive global WLAN market. As director of business development, Bob spearheaded Airespace's OEM partnerships, which have played a significant role in the company's tremendous success to date.
Bob has a long history in the networking and telecommunications space, having performed a variety of business development, product management, marketing, and IT functions at several companies, including Vertical Networks and Nationsbank (now Bank of America). In addition, Bob founded Layer 8, a forum that promotes discussion among leaders of communications and Internet infrastructure companies.
"Bob's leadership skills, vision and strong ability to execute have helped Airespace to establish extremely successful relationships with world class organizations, such as Alcatel, NEC, Nortel," said Brett Galloway. "As we continue to grow the company and our business, Bob's experience and talent will be a key element of our success."