Embrane, a leader in delivering application-centric network services, today announced it has raised $14 million in Series-C funding, led by Cisco. The round also includes new Embrane investor Presidio Ventures, and participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and North Bridge Venture Partners.

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The funding will be used to increase Embrane's investment in its market-leading application-centric network services, enhance its go-to-market strategy and expand support for third-party virtual network service appliances.

'As one of the first companies to create a software-defined networking (SDN) solution that adds agility to the network and network services, we are ready to take the next step to accelerate our growth,' said Dante Malagrinò, co-founder and CEO of Embrane. 'This new financing along with the addition of Cisco as an investor and strategic partner is a significant step in the evolution of Embrane.'

Also today, Embrane announced it will deliver life cycle management for third-party network services, including the Cisco Adaptive Security Virtual Appliance (ASAv) and Sourcefire virtual appliances.

'We are always looking for innovative technologies that can enable new solutions. For the SDN market, which we believe is poised for significant growth, Embrane is the only purpose built end-to-end solution,' said Shunichi Aramaki CEO Presidio Ventures. 'After careful analysis, it became clear Embrane has a unique offering that not only enable first movers, but also bridges any size traditional networks to transition to SDN without operational disruption - all of which are important to its continued leadership in the space.'

Embrane has raised $41 million to date.

Additional Supporting Quotes

'Enterprises continue to not only demand increased network agility, but also the ability to create network infrastructure on a per-application basis,' stated Paul Santinelli, General Partner at North Bridge and current Embrane board member. 'With Embrane, enterprises can achieve better network and application security, faster and for less, while being able to respond more quickly to the needs of the business.'

'As the dust settles on all of the SDN hype, it has become clear that companies with real products and real customer deployments today will become the leaders of tomorrow,' continued Pete Sonsini, General Partner at NEA and current Embrane board member. 'Adding Cisco as a strategic investor as well as Presidio Ventures certainly gives Embrane the resources it needs to accelerate its momentum.'

'We're proud to be a part of the Embrane team that's changing the way networks are built,' added John Vrionis, General Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners and current Embrane board member. 'Embrane's application-centric network services enable enterprises to dynamically adapt to changing business demands, infuse flexibility without adding complexity and lower costs.'

About Embrane

Embrane is the leading provider of application-centric network services, including firewalls, VPNs, load balancers and SSL offload engines. The company's solutions enable customers to create network services on per application basis in seconds, all managed from a single orchestration engine. The result is greater security, and faster time to deployment for applications. Additionally, customers achieve over 50 percent savings in CAPEX and OPEX compared to integrated hardware-based systems and traditional virtual appliance offerings. These solutions are purpose-built for enterprises and service providers looking to design data centers where agility and automation are priorities, including private/hybrid/public cloud environments.