The latest round will help fuel growth of the company, which has tripled its revenue since 2004, said chief executive Ronnie Kenneth, who declined to reveal financial numbers.
Kenneth said the company would increase its sales force by 50% and add to its customer support headcount by 30% to 50%.
Voltaire also plans to boost inventory levels in response to demand from its channel partners, including Hewlett-Packard and IBM, which are seeing growing demand for InfiniBand and, in return, expect us to satisfy these demands sooner rather than later, Kenneth said. Voltaire’s inventory levels likely will double this year from 2004, he said.
Voltaire would be profitable by the second half of 2006, Kenneth said.
In March 2004, when Voltaire raised its previous $15m round, the company said it would be able to break even. Kenneth said this was the case. But what happened is we experienced higher growth rate than we anticipated last year … and we want to capitalize on that.
Baker Capital, Pitango Venture Capital and Vertex Venture Capital led the round. Existing investors Platinum Venture Capital, Tamir Fishman Ventures and The Challenge Fund also participated. Brocade co-founder and former VP of engineering Paul Bonderson was among new investors.
The market opportunity for InfiniBand-based solutions is growing rapidly, driven by the shift to grid computing in the enterprise and the high performance computing markets, said Baker Capital partner Ashley Leeds, in a statement. Voltaire is a leader in this market, having established successful partnerships with critical vendors such as HP, IBM, SGI, Sun, Apple, NEC and Hitachi, and achieved solid customer successes.
Bedford, Massachusetts-based Voltaire launched in 1997 in order to target security appliances, but changed course in 2001.
