Forward Networks today announced $16 million in Series B venture capital, a new product, Forward Essentials, along with support for VMware ESXi virtual networking. Since launching last November, the company has significantly grown its customer base and deepened relationships with existing customers.

The latest round, which brings the company's total fundraising to $27 million, was led by DFJ, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and A.Capital Ventures. The round will allow Forward Networks to meet the high demand of its platform and continue its mission of becoming the leading software platform for error-free, robust and agile network operations. The Forward Platform, which launched from stealth last November, builds an accurate behavioral model of the network, no matter how large or complex. This behavioral model, and the applications built on top, eliminate and reduce manual, cumbersome, and error-prone activities that network operators must endure on a daily basis.

In addition to its Series B, Forward Networks is unveiling Forward Essentials, a new product which enables engineers and operators to easily access network state. The application enables network operators to reduce the time to root-cause network and security issues, as well as improve overall efficiency and time to market for network changes. Delivered as a modern web application, Forward Essentials provides instant search, a visual topology map, historical diff'ing, easy view sharing among teams, and full REST APIs for automation. For more details, see www.forwardnetworks.com/essentials.

Forward Essentials is currently available via a beta program, with immediate sign-ups, and will become generally available in Q4 2017. Forward Essentials is offered in two tiers:

Free - Full functionality, with usage limits
Standard - Unlimited licensed devices, unlimited daily network device snapshots, and one year snapshot retention - with a per-network-device per-month pricing model
Another significant enhancement to the Forward Platform is support for VMware vSphere virtual networking on ESXi hosts. Specifically, support for vSphere Standard and Distributed Switches on ESXi versions 5.5, 6.0, and 6.5. This new support extends the capability to visualize and search complex networks, debug problems, and verify intent and policy correctness, all the way into the virtualized environment, for truly comprehensive end-to-end network visibility and behavioral analysis.

Forward Networks will showcase their VMware ESXi support, along with Forward Essentials and the Forward Platform, next week at VMworld Las Vegas (Innovator Pavilion; Booth F).

Comments on the news
"David and his team have built a truly game-changing platform" said Andreas Stavropoulos, partner at DFJ. "Modern enterprise networks are larger, more diverse and more fragile than ever before. Forward has taken a critical and significant step forward in how organizations manage their networks."

"We are very pleased to witness Forward Networks' accomplishments. Three years ago we invested in the company because of the strength of the team, the differentiating technology, and the long-term vision of the company," said Bill Krause, board partner at Andreessen Horowitz. "The company's execution, vision and intense commitment to its customers is further proof that this was a smart investment."

"I am delighted to be part of the continued success of Forward Networks", said Ronny Conway, founder and general partner at A.Capital. "We saw the company's potential and believed in their vision at an early stage. I am excited to see the next phase of the company's growth that this new round of funding will accelerate".

"We are thrilled to have DFJ join us on our journey. Having their financial support and expertise, along with that of Andreessen Horowitz and A.Capital, enables us to accelerate execution of our vision for networking," said David Erickson, co-founder and CEO of Forward Networks.

About Forward Networks
The Forward Platform, which launched from stealth last November, uses advanced modeling and analytics to precisely analyze network behavior in networks with thousands of nodes. In addition to Forward Essentials, Forward Networks offers three applications: Forward Search, Forward Verify and Forward Predict. Working together, these applications allow customers to improve operational efficiency, reduce outage occurrence and duration. Forward Networks was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit www.forwardnetworks.com.