Sunday, July 17, 2005

ConSentry Raises $17 Million for Pervasive LAN Security

ConSentry Networks (formerly Tidal Networks), a start-up based in Milpitas, California, raised an additional $17 million in an oversubscribed Series C funding round for its technology aimed at providing pervasive LAN security.


ConSentry plans to offer a purpose-built system that leverages its own, high-performance silicon to continuously identify all LAN traffic and enforce user access to authorized resources and applications at wire-speed, in real-time. The company said existing network firewalls apply security at a single ingress/egress point, but that the security threat has spread to points throughout a network. Products plans have not yet been announced.


The new funding round includes previous investors Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital, as well as a new investment from INVESCO Private Capital, bringing ConSentry's total funding to $31 million.


ConSentry's technical team is headed by Jeff Prince, previously co-founder of Foundry Networks and Centillion Networks. Tom Barsi, previously co-founder and vice president of marketing & business development at VINA Technologies, serves as ConSentry's President and CEO. The company also announced the following executive appointments:

  • Dean Hickman-Smith as vice president, worldwide sales. Previously, he was vice president of emerging technologies at Juniper Networks responsible for driving global sales for the security technology acquisitions and product offerings.


  • Franklin Grosvenor as vice president of operations. Previously, he was senior director of manufacturing for the Wireless Networking Business Unit and Mobile Wireless Group with Cisco Systems.


  • Sam Farsad as vice president of engineering. Previously, he was vice president of software engineering with Extreme Networks.




http://www.consentry.com