Israeli entrepreneur Oran Uzrad-Neli made another exit yesterday. Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD) announced yesterday that it had acquired Uzrad-Neli’s company Silverback Systems Inc., which develops IP-based processors for storage networks. Brocade did not disclose the purchase price in its announcement but said it was “not material to the company.”
Silverbank was founded in 2000 by Uzrad-Neli, who serves as company VP technology & business development. The company focuses on IP-based enterprise storage networks, a field that became extremely popular towards the end of the 1990s. The market was affected by two trends at that time - an increase in quantities of data and the need to separate their management from the processing activity of enterprise servers, and the wider use of IP-based networks.
Silverbank develops storage network acceleration processors based on iSCSI protocol. The company’s iSNAP product line coordinates communications between computer devices and IP networls. Silverbank’s iSCSI-based solution will help Brocade to provide communications solutions for SAN networks facing increasing demand for faster data transfer (up to 10Gb per second).
Uzrad-Neli’s last exit was in 2000, when he sold MMC to AMCC for $4.5 million. Headquartered in Campbell, California, Silverbank is not an Israeli company but it has Israeli managers. At one time it considered setting up an R&D center in Israel and it currently has a small development team based in Netanya.
According to IVC figures, Silverbank has raised $51 million to date, in addition to the financing raised from Intel Capital in 2004. Its investors include Israeli venture capital funds Pitango Venture Capital, and Gemini Israel Funds, alongside foreign investors, among them China Development Industrial Bank, Newbury Ventures, and JP Morgan Partners. The company held its third financing round in April 2006, in which Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP) also participated as a strategic investor. Silverbank employs 35 people and its current CEO is Ahmet Houssein.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on January 9, 2007
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2006