UPDATED 08:00 EDT / MAY 01 2019

INFRA

With IPO off the table for now, Aryaka raises $50M round led by Goldman Sachs

Aryaka Networks Inc., a startup helping enterprises connect disparate offices and data centers, today disclosed that it has raised $50 million in new funding.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. led the investment. The capital injection follows a $45 million round in early 2017, at which time Aryaka was actively working toward an initial public offering.

The networking startup put its stock market plans on the back burner last year after a management reshuffle saw Matt Carter, a onetime head of Sprint Corp.’s enterprise business, take over as chief executive.

Aryaka is the second-largest player behind VMware Inc. in the software-defined wide-area network market. SD-WAN solutions focus on simplifying the management of the long-distance connections inside an organization’s network, such as those that transport data between its corporate headquarters and branch offices in other cities. Another focus of SD-WAN technology is providing better connectivity to public cloud platforms.

Aryaka’s flagship offering, SmartConnect, is a globally distributed network specifically built to transport enterprises’ data traffic over long distances. The startup sends packets via high-speed private infrastructure leased from carriers instead of the public web. It claims that SmartConnect can enable up to 40 times better application performance while easing day-to-day maintenance operations.

Since the underlying network infrastructure is fully managed by Aryaka, administrators are freed up to focus on other tasks. Furthermore, SmartConnect automatically compresses and deduplicates data before transmitting it to save bandwidth for companies.

Another task that Aryaka promises to simplify is network expansions. Manually extending a company’s SD-WAN infrastructure to a newly established branch office normally takes upwards of weeks. In contrast, the startup claimed, SmartConnect makes it possible to complete the setup process within as little as eight hours.

Aryaka’s network is used by more than 800 organizations worldwide, mostly large enterprises such as Cigna Corp. and Chinese flag carrier Air China Ltd. The startup has raised $184 million in funding to date.

Photo: Unsplash

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