Score another one for IT infrastructure startups in the Boston area.
Burlington, MA-based Rift.io, which has been in stealth mode, said Thursday it has completed a $16 million round of Series A funding. The deal was led by North Bridge Venture Partners, with unnamed strategic investors also participating.
At least some of the money in the round has been previously reported.
Rift.io says it is developing an open-source network virtualization platform for network service developers, enterprises, and service providers. It sounds like the company is applying some of the same principles from the virtualization of machines and Web apps to the fundamental problems of networking in the age of connected devices, Internet of Things, cloud-based environments, and new kinds of data centers.
The startup is led by founder and CEO Greg Alden, a veteran of Movik Networks, Nexius, Starent Networks, and Cisco. Other team members came from Juniper Networks, 3Com, and EMC.
In addition to Massachusetts, the company has offices in San Jose, CA, and Bangalore, India. Rift.io is participating in the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco next week.
Author: Gregory T. Huang
Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003.
Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
View all posts by Gregory T. Huang
