Trapeze Networks Rounds Up $34 Million In Second-Round Funding

Trapeze Networks, a WLAN networking vendor based here, announced Wednesday that it has raised $34 million in second-round Series B funding, bringing the total investment in the company to $50 million.

Investors include $12 million from Oak Investment Partners, Palo Alto, Calif., with additional Series B funding from venture capital firms Duff Ackerman & Goodrich and Castile Ventures. Original investors include VC firms Accel Partners and Redpoint Ventures, along with a group of Trapeze employees that collectively contributed $16 million in Series A funding in April 2002.

Trapeze is one of several fledgling WLAN companies that, over the past few months, has introduced plans for intelligent switches they say centralize and simplify WLAN augmentations to wired networks.

In addition to Trapeze, newcomers include Airespace, Aruba Wireless Networks, Legra Systems and Vivado. More established players such as Extreme Networks, Nortel Networks, Proxim and Symbol Technologies have also launched new wireless switches and solutions of their own. Cisco, meanwhile, recently launched what it is calling a wireless-aware framework built into its core networking products that includes centralized management of up to 2,500 access points.

In a released statement about the new funding, Jim Flach, president and CEO of Trapeze, said the investment would enable the company to "aggressively meet the rising customer demand for its WLAN solutions" while working to maintain a leadership position in the emerging market.

Trapeze also announced that Bandel Carano, general partner at Oak Investment Partners, has been appointed to its board of directors. He joins Flach, Peter Wagner of Accel Partners, John Walecka of Redpoint Ventures, and Bill Miskovetz, engineering vice president at Trapeze.