Hammerhead nets VC cash

Hammerhead Systems this week announced that it has raised $25 million in a second round of financing. Additionally, the company said it is in trials with an unnamed RBOC and another tier 1 service provider.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company, which has developed what it calls a service-aware migration edge platform, has landed more than $43 million in total funding. The current round was led by Pequot Ventures with existing investors Mayfield, General Capital and Enterprise Partners also participating.

The company’s product play is being marketed as a more economic step in the migration to full IP networks at the edge. The migration edge switch connects Gigabit Ethernet with Frame Relay and ATM while operating over both ATM and MPLS backbones.

"We can take a handoff from any type of access network," said Robert Keil, founder and vice president of marketing and business development.

The key, Keil said, is being able operate in either the ATM control plane or MPLS control plane.

From a service perspective, Hammerhead, which is lead by former Lucent executive Joe Sigrist, is pinning its hopes on its ability to help carriers keep its existing customers rather than necessarily attracting new ones.

"The value of retaining the customer can’t be overstated," Keil said. "The problem is that the edge of the network is going to undergo a huge transformation just like the access network is undergoing now."