Movaz announces funding, test customer

ATLANTA--Movaz Networks, a one-year-old startup in the optical networking arena, announced this week that it had closed $62 million in a second round of funding--$52 million in equity and $10 million in loans.

“That will get us to the second quarter of 2002,” said Bijan Khosravi, founder, chairman and CEO of Movaz.

Investors include Oak Investment Partners, Meritech Capital Partners and Silicon Valley Bank, as well as first round financiers Menlo Ventures, Worldview Technology Partners.

The money will help Movaz enter full production of its RAY optical networking products, which the company officially debuted this week. The RAYexpress is an optical add/drop multiplexer that sits at the customer premises; the RAYstar blends optical transport and wavelength routing capabilities for edge, core and hub central offices. Those devices are managed by the RAYtracer network management system.

“A new era is emerging. This is a new optical era,” Khosravi said. “It has been a Sonet optical network, not an optical network.”

Optical services must provide three items: wavelength transport, wavelength switching and wavelength management. Vendors have one or two pieces of the puzzle, but not all three, Khosravi said. Movaz is developing all three components.

“You need transport, intelligent cross-connection and signaling capabilities,” he said. “You need all three to build a network that behaves like Sonet, but provides wavelength services.

Wavelength services will push forward optical networking, particularly since Ethernet and T-1 prices are coming in line, Khosravi said. “We believe Ethernet will be one of the dominant services,” he said. 

Genuity is testing the products, said Steve Blumenthal, senior vice president of engineering and technology with Genuity. The company testing the RAYexpress in a regional fiber ring and noticed space and power savings, he added.

Genuity was attracted to the combination of Movaz’s technology.

“We were interested in their optical switching technology. It’s a critical component of the network. We were also interested in the software capabilities Movaz brings,” Blumenthal said.

Genuity is testing Movaz products but has not signed a purchase order, Blumenthal said. “All we’ve done is test it. We have no commitment to buy. We’ll look at all the products out there,” he said. However, Blumenthal noted, “This is a step beyond [Ciena’s] CoreDirector. This has increased functionality and takes less power than the CoreDirector.”
Susan Biagi is Editor in Chief for Telephony. She can be reached at susan_biagi@intertec.com.