Ranzure Networks today announced that the company has completed a $13 million Series A funding. This round of investment was co-led by LiveOak Venture Partners and Mitel.
Venu Shamapant, co-founder and General Partner of LiveOak Venture Partners, will join Ranzure's board of directors.
'I have partnered with Pardeep twice before and am excited to be working with him for a third time', says Venu Shamapant (founding General Partner at LiveOak Venture Partners). 'Having backed Pardeep previously through Spatial Wireless and Mavenir Systems for large disruptions in the wireless infrastructure industry, the General Partners of LiveOak are confident in the company he will build and the solutions the Ranzure team will craft. Radio Access Network (RAN) is the largest piece of wireless infrastructure and is ripe for disruption through the application of cloud based virtualization technologies. We strive to back the best entrepreneurs in Texas, and Pardeep is the perfect example of our investment thesis at work.'
'Network densification, IoT, and new spectrum availability will enable applications and devices that will fundamentally transform the way we live and interact with our surroundings,' said Pardeep Kohli, President, and CEO of Ranzure Networks Inc. 'The next generation mobile networks are expected to handle much more data volume, connect exponentially more devices, significantly reduce latency and bring new levels of reliability. A flexible Radio Access Network is a key cornerstone for this evolution. Ranzure will bring flexible, virtualized, cloud-based 4G/5G RAN solutions to address the evolving market needs.'
Ranzure will use the capital to continue its product and solutions development for service providers and partners globally. In addition to the R&D activities, it will build its sales and operations teams for the emerging network technology solutions.
About Ranzure
Founded by industry veterans with extensive experience in virtualized LTE core networks and Radio Access technologies - Ranzure is focused on paving the way for seamless superfast 5G networks. Ranzure is backed by LiveOak Venture Partners and Mitel. In addition to the funding from Mitel, Ranzure Networks will license Mitel Mobile technology in the area of Evolved Packet Core to support service providers as they build 5G networks for the Internet of Things. Ranzure is based in Richardson, Texas, with additional development centers in Ottawa, Canada and Bengaluru, India. Visit http://www.ranzure.com for more information.
About Mitel
A global market leader in enterprise and mobile communications powering more than 2 billion business connections and 2 billion mobile subscribers every day, Mitel (Nasdaq:MITL) (TSX:MNW) helps businesses and mobile carriers connect, collaborate and provide innovative services to their customers. Our innovation and communications experts serve more than 60 million business users in more than 100 countries, and 130 mobile service providers including 15 of the top 20 mobile carriers in the world. That makes us unique, and the only company able to provide a bridge between enterprise and mobile customers. Visit http://www.mitel.com for more information.
About LiveOak Venture Partners
LiveOak is a $109MM Fund based in Austin, TX and was founded by Ben Scott, Krishna Srinivasan, and Venu Shamapant (all formerly of Austin Ventures). While many of LiveOak's investments begin in the early stages, LiveOak is a full lifecycle investor focused on technology and technology-driven service companies primarily based in Texas. With over 16 years of successful early stage investing in Texas, the Founders of LiveOak have helped entrepreneurs create industry-leading companies, such as Spatial Wireless (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent), Navini Networks (acquired by Cisco Systems), LifeSize Technologies (acquired by Logitech), Mavenir Systems (acquired by Mitel), and StackEngine (Acquired by Oracle). Visit http://www.liveoakvp.com for more information.