Innovium scores $170M in new funding for next-generation cloud data center networks; joins the coveted $1 billion unicorn club

The last time we wrote about Innovium was back in April 2018 when the Switch chip startup raised $77 million in Series D financing. The funding was part of investors confidence in the designer of Ethernet switch chips grabbed sockets away from Broadcom which dominates the field. The move to cloud has created a multi-billion dollar market opportunity for the next generation of cloud-focused networking technologies and Innovium is leading the change.

Today, the San Jose, California-based Innovium announced it has raised $170 Million in additional funding and become the first network silicon company to achieve unicorn status. The latest funding recognizes the traction Innovium is seeing in the market as a disruptive, data center network infrastructure company in a multi-billion secular high-growth market. The funding will be used to accelerate product and customer momentum world-wide.

The new fresh capital includes new investments from Premji Invest, DFJ Growth, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, and multiple strategic investors, along with existing investors including Greylock, Capricorn, WRVI, Qualcomm Ventures, Redline, S-Cubed Capital and DAG. Innovium becomes the first network silicon company to achieve unicorn status.

Founded in 2014 by Mohammad Issa, Puneet Agarwal, and Rajiv Khemani, Innovium is a provider of networking solutions for data centers. With mobile, video, big data, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other cloud services driving new cloud networking requirements, Innovium was founded with a focus on developing and deploying advanced technology that successfully addresses the most challenging issues facing data centers. The startup delivers breakthrough network scalability, performance and insights to fuel the most modern applications in fast-growing Cloud and Edge data centers.

“We are delighted at the strong adoption at leading OEM, Cloud and ODM customers for our TERALYNX® family, which resulted in over 20% market share for 50G SerDes switch silicon in our first year of shipments. This additional funding, achieved despite ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty, validates our vision, execution and momentum in a multi-billion secular high-growth market,” said Rajiv Khemani, Co-founder and CEO of Innovium.

In an email to Tech Startups, Innovium said it will use the fresh capital infusion to deliver a multi-year runway while accelerating R&D innovation and expanding customer engagements with Innovium as a trusted long-term partner.

“Data centers are expected to see secular long-term expansion from Cloud, 5G, AI and remote-work applications. Innovative TERALYNX switch silicon products from Innovium have already been adopted by world’s leading hyperscale Cloud providers and leading OEMs including Cisco. We are excited to partner with Innovium for its roadmap innovation and help accelerate go-to-market ramp up,” said TK Kurien, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Premji Invest.