Juniper takes stake in Trapeze

Juniper Networks joined Nortel Networks and Motorola as an investor in wireless LAN (WLAN) equipment vendor Trapeze Networks this week.

A new $30 million D round of funding brings four-year-old Trapeze’s total funding to $102.5 million. Previous investors Nortel, Oak Investment Partners, Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures, DAG and Castille joined Juniper in the round. Trapeze said it plans to use the new funds for product development.

The addition of Juniper also adds to the already notable list of Trapeze’s strategic investors and partners, which includes Motorola, Nortel, 3Com, D-Link and Enterasys Networks.

Motorola Ventures invested an undisclosed sum in Trapeze as part of its C round of funding last year, which prompted speculation that Motorola would acquire the start-up outright.

Nortel became a Trapeze investor in the spring of 2005, contributing an unknown sum in the vendor’s $17.5 million round in conjunction with an original equipment manufacturer partnership between the two companies that also included joint development of products. Nortel’s 2300 line of WLANs, introduced in March 2005, was developed using Trapeze technology.

Juniper’s investment also provides something of a response to Cisco Systems’ $450-million acquisition of WLAN vendor Airespace early last year. Juniper’s previous response to its chief rival’s WLAN move was a sales and marketing partnership with Meru Networks announced a year ago.

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