Ahuja's Next Chapter Is Versa
SD-WAN specialist Versa Networks has unveiled Kelly Ahuja, the former senior vice president (SVP) of Cisco's Service Provider Business, as its new CEO.
The up-and-coming Santa Clara, Calif.-based startup also named Pankaj Patel, formerly chief development officer at Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), to its board. (See The Life & Times of Pankaj Patel and Cisco EVP Development Patel Says Sayonara.)
The appointments signal a major step in the corporate development of Versa Networks , which has made significant progress signing up major communications service provider customers in 2016. (See Colt Takes Versa on Its SD-WAN Journey, Versa Adds RCN Business to Customer Roster and Versa Makes Its Mark at CenturyLink.)
So what does Versa do that those companies like so much? It's explained here: Startup Versa Announces 'Carrier-Grade' Multi-Tenant NFV Platform.
As you would expect, Ahuja is pumped to be on board the Versa train. After leaving Cisco earlier this year, he says he looked around to see what was hot in various sectors, including mobility and cloud, and quickly realized that there was an ongoing shift towards the public cloud by enterprises looking for "speed and agility" and that "there is a huge opportunity for a new company to address the un-met need in wide area networking and IT services. Everyone is focused on virtualization" but cloud-native technology that can deliver the ability to easily scale up and down is still not commonly available, Ahuja tells Light Reading.
"So I spoke to some VCs to see if I should start something and they all said I should talk to Versa," adds the CEO.
He said he found there were four very good reasons to work at Versa -- "I call them the four Ts," he jokes.
So how's Versa's financial health? That's not something Ahuja and the Versa team are ready to discuss currently. The company has raised $43 million from the likes of Sequoia Capital and Verizon Ventures to fund its growth and, with its software subscription-based revenues model, it will be some time before significant revenues start to feed through as its customers build their own business around Versa's capabilities. So is there a need for further funding? And is Ahuja on board to help Versa find a buyer of move towards an IPO?
Ahuja has his script ready. "We are on a mission to build a successful business and we're focusing on executing. The right things will happen if you build a successful business… it's too early to be talking about an IPO."
Versa's CMO Mark Weiner jumps in at this point to note that the current funding is plenty to fund the company's ongoing growth and add that, at some point in the future, further funding will likely be needed.
In the meantime, the battle is on to win as big a share of the SD-WAN pie as possible. Versa, of course, has competition (though Ahuja likes to think of Versa as the "pure play" SD-WAN vendor). VeloCloud and Viptela are also active independent specialists that are landing deals with major service providers. (See VeloCloud Touts SD-WAN Wins, Sprint Plans Global SD-WAN Launch for 2017, AT&T Joins SD-WAN Fray and Verizon's Next With VNFs.)
And of course there are the major infrastructure players, such as Ahuja's former employer Cisco and the Nuage Networks division of Nokia, to contend with. "Those are the legacy players," states Ahuja, seemingly keen to elicit a public response. (See Eurobites: BT Deploys Nuage for SD-WAN and BT Enters SD-WAN Fray With Cisco.)
Interestingly, Cisco is an investor in VeloCloud. (See Cisco Joins $27M Round for SD-WAN Startup VeloCloud.)
— Ray Le Maistre, 
, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading
But surely this is going to bring the M&A teams calling?
Every startup wants to build the business etc but every company has its price and SD-WAN is hot right now.
I'd be shocked if there wasn't a deal done in 2017.
Just my opinion, based on everything that's ever happened ever in hot markets....