Montreal-based startup Kaloom earlier this month announced another $21 million in funding, bringing the six-year-old firm's total funding haul to $71 million.

Now, with its 100 employees, the company is working to expand its sales and flesh out its product portfolio. The company's broad goal, according to founder and CEO Laurent Marchand, is to help operators profit from the transition to 5G.

"We need the operators to extend their thinking beyond the traditional smartphone user to make it a success," he said of 5G. "This is absolutely vital for them."

Figure 1: (Source: Philipp Dimitri / Westend61 GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo)

Marchand said his viewpoint is based on his long history in the wireless industry, having worked through multiple wireless generations – from 2G to 4G – at vendors including Ericsson and Nortel. He said Kaloom is built on his understanding of where wireless networks are headed next.

"I'm convinced we made the right choice," he said of the company's broad focus on software, virtualization, containers and edge computing.

Kaloom's software offerings help collapse all the different platforms that operators may run inside the edge computing data centers they will need for low-latency network operations. He suggested that the company's platform can help operators cut their computing needs in half in these locations.

Kaloom's marketing chief, Hitendra Sonny Soni, suggested that the shift to edge computing will help open doors for startups like Kaloom. But he also acknowledged that the company will need to work with an ecosystem made up of a variety of players.

So far, Marchand said Kaloom has been enjoying some successes with its strategy. He said the company's initial customers range from Telus to Telenor to Telstra. He added that Kaloom competes against a wide range of companies including rival startups like DriveNets (which recently raised $262 million in funding) and Pluribus Networks (which last year raised $20 million in funding). Kaloom generally sells its software through an "as a service" structure based on monthly usage.

Thanks to the company's new round of funding – derived from the Quebec government and Kaloom existing investor Alternative Capital Group (ACG) – Marchand said Kaloom would work to expand its sales channel and update its products. He specifically mentioned a focus on access technologies beyond 5G, such as 4G and Wi-Fi, as well as offerings for services ranging from network slicing to private wireless networking.

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— Mike Dano, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies, Light Reading | @mikeddano