Israeli start-up BitBand Inc. today announced that Apax Partners had joined its second funding round with a $3.8 million investment, raising the total amount of the round to $9.1 million.
In August of 2002, BitBand announced the round had reached $5.25 million, with investments from Sequoia Seed Capital, the Fantine Group, the Challenge Fund and the Kardan Group.
BitBand develops solutions for streaming high quality video and audio over high-speed IP networks, including fiber to the home (FTTH), xDSL and Ethernet.
BitBand says it will use the additional capital to extend its marketing and sales efforts and its global presence in relevant markets. The company plans to broaden its product offering to address a larger portion of customer needs in the area of digital broadband services over IP networks.
Apax Partners managing director Allan Barkat has joined BitBand’s board of directors.
“This kind of investment fits our telecoms investment strategy of investing in carriers on the one hand and in equipment vendors on the other. The offering of digital broadband services over IP networks broadens the range of opportunities in creating new markets in the communications sector,” Barkat said.
BitBand was founded in 1999, and in May 2000 it completed a first funding round of $4 million. Its customers include Italy’s Fastweb, a provider of broadband services.
Private equity investor Apax Partners operates across Europe, Israel, the United States and Japan. Some of Apax Partners Funds’ telecommunications investments include Ceragon Networks (Nasdaq: CRNT), Damovo, Dialog Semiconductor, Esprit Telecom, EZchip Technologies, Tdsoft and Wisair. Apax has been involved in the tender to buy the government’s stake in Bezeq, and in negotiations to buy cable television company Tevel Digital.
In the last two months it was reported that Apax intended to join Disney’s Shamrock Holdings of California to buy 25% of Matav-Cable Systems Media (Nasdaq: MATV) for $50 million, pending the merger of Israel’s cable television companies.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on 24 March, 2003