Cisco Investments, the corporate venturing arm of networking technology provider Cisco, has led a $70m series E round for US-headquartered content streaming technology provducer Qwilt, KrAsia reported yesterday.
The round, which valued the company at $800m according to No Camels, was also backed by undisclosed existing investors.
Founded in 2010, Qwilt has built an edge cloud software platform that helps streaming service providers facilitate high-bandwidth internet activities such as video livestreaming and online gaming. It will use the cash to fund research and development initiatives, hire new talent and bolster its marketing capabilities.
In October 2020, the company announced a strategic partnership with Cisco and Digital Alpha Advisors, a digital infrastructure-focused investment affiliate of the latter. As part of the agreement, Cisco and Qwilt launched an open caching service that enables internet services providers to cache and deliver streaming content.
Jonathan Davidson, executive vice-president and general manager in Cisco’s Mass-Scale Infrastructure Group, said: “Cisco’s investment in Qwilt demonstrates our commitment to helping customers monetise their edge cloud infrastructure with a solution that improves the quality of service and reliability.”
Qwilt’s last funding round was a $25m series D round in 2015 that led by VC fund Disrupt-ive, which took part together with Cisco Investments, Innovation Endeavors, Accel, Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), Marker and Redpoint Ventures.
The company had previously received a total of $40m of funding from investors including BVP, Accel, Redpoint and Marker.