StarGen Generates $15MStarGen Generates $15M

StarGen receives $15M in third-round venture funding from Morgenthaler, St. Paul, Commonwealth, and others

June 16, 2003

3 Min Read

MARLBOROUGH, Mass. -- StarGen, a semiconductor company that supplies advanced serial switched interconnect solutions and is recognized as an innovation leader in its market, today announced that it received $15 million in third round venture funding.

StarGen, which was founded in 1999, will use this investment to expand its existing customer base, enhance its global reach, and introduce its current solutions to new markets. Additionally, investment in new product development will leverage its unequaled expertise in the emerging interconnect standards of PCI Express(tm) and Advanced Switching (AS).

Participants in this round of investment include current investors Morgenthaler Ventures, St. Paul Venture Capital, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, and The Boston University Community Technology Fund. In July 1999, StarGen received $6 million in seed round funding, and, in July 2000, it received $20 million in Series B funding.

"In times like these, only the strong survive, and StarGen has emerged as one of the strongest innovators in its space - both in product offering and intellectual property," said Paul Levine, general partner at Morgenthaler Ventures and member of StarGen's board of directors. "StarGen is well-positioned to take advantage of the technology transition from bus-based to switch-based system interconnects. The company has demonstrated the viability and vitality of this category with its currently-shipping StarFabric products and is poised to be a leader in the emerging market for PCI Express and AS silicon solutions."

StarGen achieved full-volume production of the StarFabric portfolio last year, including the SG1010 StarFabric Switch and the SG2010 PCI-to-StarFabric Bridge. To date, StarGen has shipped tens of thousands of StarFabric ports to over 50 companies worldwide. These design wins are across a broad spectrum of applications - from automated test equipment, to server and storage expansion, to medical imaging devices - among many others. In March, StarGen expanded its StarFabric product line by unveiling the SG3010 TDM-to-StarFabric Bridge aimed at tackling the unique interconnect requirements of access communications equipment engineers who design voice, data, and video systems. Together, these products provide a real-world serial switched interconnect solution to embedded and communication equipment OEMs for building high-speed, scalable and highly reliable systems with an easy migration path from current architectures.

One such customer is SeaChange International, Inc., located in Maynard, MA. SeaChange is a leading provider of digital video systems for the cable industry. "Our video server systems enable cable operators to provide new on-demand services thereby increasing their product offerings and their revenue potential," said Bruce Mann, vice president of network storage at SeaChange and president of SeaChange Systems. "With StarFabric, we are able to significantly increase the throughput of our previous generation systems while reusing many of the existing system components, chassis, and software. The upgrade is totally transparent to our customers but will greatly increase their subscriber capabilities. StarFabric was ideal for our needs, allowing us to easily evolve away from the constraints of our previous generation's shared-bus architecture."

StarGen is leveraging its experience and expertise gained through StarFabric to develop its new StarXpress product line comprising a family of bridges and switches based on the emerging PCI Express and AS industry standards. StarGen's architects, working in conjunction with Intel and others, have been leading contributors to the development of the AS specification over the last year. This new portfolio, slated for delivery beginning in 2004, is composed of StarXpress switches and StarXpress bridges, and it provides high bandwidth serial switched interconnect solutions for next-generation communication, storage, server, and embedded system designs.

"We're excited to take StarGen to the next level - both in terms of corporate expansion and product development," said Tracy Richardson, president and co-founder of StarGen. "With this new round of investment, our commitment is solidified to provide the best in advanced serial switched interconnect solutions to our current and future customers."

StarGen Inc.

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