CENX Closes $12.5 Million Investment - Business Growth Fueled by SDN and NFV Market

OTTAWA, Ontario, August 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

CENX, a global leader of Lifecycle Service Orchestration solutions for software-defined and virtualized networks, today announced that it has finalized new equity investment totaling $12.5 million USD. New investors BDC Capital, Mistral Venture Partners, and VMware joined the Series D financing round, in which all current investors participated: Highland Capital Partners, Mesirow Financial Private Equity Inc., Verizon Ventures, a subsidiary of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, NASDAQ:VZ), Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), DCM Ventures, and Cross Creek Advisors.

This investment will help accelerate CENX's global market and portfolio expansion in addressing emerging requirements for Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) for service providers that are evolving to Software-defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) technologies. CENX's Cortx Service Orchestrator is an essential enabler of SDN and NFV deployments, leveraging the power of network big data analytics for dynamic provisioning, visualization and assurance of data services across heterogeneous physical and virtualized networks.

Ever-growing demand for enterprise and consumer Cloud-based applications is driving service providers to change the way they operate their networks, and to turn to software systems that support agile service delivery and real-time service assurance. The LSO market is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of nearly 60%, reaching $2.7 billion by 2019, according to The Rayno Report, fueled by carrier SDN and NFV markets that are increasing 50-80% annually.  

"We welcome the market, business and partnership perspectives that VMware, BDC Capital, and Mistral bring to CENX," said Ed Ogonek, President and CEO of CENX. "We are seeing tremendous demand worldwide for our Cortx solution, delivering tangible value in today's networks and empowering the evolution to virtualized networks and services with NFV and SDN. With the support and confidence of our growing investor group, we continue to expand our world-class team to meet these global opportunities."

"CENX is at the forefront of the fast-rising LSO market with its Cortx Service Orchestrator, and we are delighted to support its continued global business growth," said Ron Warburton, Managing Partner, IT Venture Fund, BDC Capital. "This is a great opportunity to bring Canadian innovation to mobile, wireline, and cloud service providers worldwide."

"CENX shares VMware's vision to deliver innovative solutions for virtualization and cloud computing," said David Wright, Vice President, Operations, Telco NFV Group, VMware. "With more and more carriers moving to NFV, there is a real need for CENX's high-scale, real-time LSO solutions to ensure high service quality end-to-end across both physical and virtual network infrastructure. We look forward to participating in this industry transformation."

"The Board is very pleased with CENX's business progress and, on behalf of all the investors, we're excited to be part of its next stage of growth," said Sean Dalton, Partner with Highland Capital Partners, and Chairman of the CENX Board. "CENX has been building its global footprint and organizational competencies aggressively year-over-year, driven by strong demand for its Cortx solutions. We see that trajectory continuing as operators transition to next-generation data networks."

About CENX

CENX provides Lifecycle Service Orchestration solutions that automate fulfillment and assurance of advanced data services in software-defined networks, bridging physical and virtualized network functions. We harness the power of real-time big data analytics and web-scale computing technologies to dynamically fulfill, visualize, navigate and assure data services across multi-vendor, SDN and NFV networks. CENX solutions are deployed by service providers worldwide to create new revenue streams, gain service agility, reduce operational costs, and deliver quality-assured data services. http://www.cenx.com

About BDC Capital  

A subsidiary of BDC, BDC Capital offers a full spectrum of specialized financing and investment solutions to help Canadian entrepreneurs achieve their full growth potential. With more than $1.6 billion under management, BDC Capital takes a strategic, patient approach to nurture companies' development over the long term. From venture capital to equity to growth and transition capital, our team of over 100 experienced, local professionals partner with entrepreneurs to identify and meet their needs on flexible terms. Some of the sectors in which we specialize include IT, industrial/clean/energy technology, and healthcare. For more information, please visit http://www.bdccapital.ca or follow us on Twitter at @BDC_Capital.

About Mistral Venture Partners

Mistral Venture Partners is an early stage focused venture capital firm with offices in Ottawa, Canada and Palo Alto, California. We partner with exceptional management teams who strive to make a global impact by leveraging unique Internet-related IP. Mistral sets itself apart by leveraging a network of Executive Fellows who are not only investors but also longtime operating experts who can help build companies into global technology platforms. http://www.mistralvp.com

Links and search terms

http://www.cenx.com
http://www.cenx.com/about/overview.html
http://www.cenx.com/cortx-service-orchestrator/
http://www.cenx.com/about/service-orchestration.html

CENX, Cortx Service Orchestrator, Lifecycle Service Orchestration, LSO, Cloud, data center, network functions virtualization, NFV, software-defined networking, SDN, IP, Ethernet, big data analytics, OSS

Follow CENX

http://www.blog.cenx.com
http://www.twitter.com/cenxinc
http://www.linkedin.com/company/cenx-inc
http://www.youtube.com/cenxinc

Hannah Whitrow, Zonic Group PR, hwhitrow@zonicgroup.com , +44-(0)1672-550126