Startup vet Bob Machlin lands at WLAN switch company, gets $8 million in VC funding to work with UPDATED 4/23 NOON

April 22, 2003

1 Min Read
AirFlow Gets Dough, CEO

Wireless LAN switch startup AirFlow Networks announced today that it has signed up networking veteran Bob Machlin as its new CEO and received $8 million in additional VC funding (see AirFlow Scores $8M, CEO).

Machlin says that he will use the cash to help build up the firm's management teams and its sales and marketing effort, and launch its first products in the second half of this year (see AirFlow's WLAN Switch Packs a Big MAC for the lowdown on AirFlow's technology).

Machlin was previously CEO of access equipment maker Catena Networks Inc.; before that he was VP of worldwide marketing for Ascend Communications during its $24 billion acquisition by Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: LU) in 1999 (see Catena's Picking a New Top Dog and Whatever Happened to X?).

However, Machlin says that he first encountered wireless LAN technology a long time ago. "I ran a wireless LAN project 20 years ago at Motorola," he tells Unstrung.

Machlin replaces acting CEO and company founder Harry Bims, who will continue as CTO at Airflow, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. Bims founded AirFlow in January of 2002, with seven engineers and $2 million in seed funding.

Machlin says that the management change was a board decision. "The board decided they wanted to help the company grow," he says.

Machlin adds that AirFlow will look for more VC funding in the future: "an expansion round to continue to grow the business."

The company will announce more management appointments next week.

— Dan Jones, Senior Editor, Unstrung

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