Compass-EOS raises $42M

Compass-EOS has raised $42 million in investment. The Israeli start-up launched its r10004 IP core router in March and has so far announced two customers: NTT Communications and the China Education and Research Network, CERNET. The company says it has a second, tier-one operator that has yet to be announced.

Asaf Somekh with the icPhotonics chip

"Both global operators have purchased routers on several occasions for several types of deployments," says Asaf Somekh, vice president of marketing at Compass-EOS. “There are also a couple of smaller operators that we cannot disclose at this stage." The company is  involved in several trials in the US, Japan and EMEA.

The r10004 core router uses the company's novel icPhotonics chip that has a Terabit-plus optical interface. The chip, which houses a merchant network processor, integrates 168, 8 Gigabit VCSELs and 168 photodetectors for a total bandwidth of 1.344Tbps in each direction.

Eight chips are connected in a full mesh, removing the need for a router's switch fabric and mid-plane that connect the router cards. The result is a 6U-sized compact router platform that saves on power and cost.

First router deployments have been operational for over a year. Somekh says customers have been positive about the router's ease of deployment, operation and robustness, and have not encountered significant issues with deployments. "This is very different from their past experiences of introducing a new vendor into their networks," he says.

The latest funding will be used to develop further the icPhotonics chip

Somekh also says that using the router delivers revenue benefits. Replacing a traditional three-chassis - 126U in total - core router with the 6U one has enabled the operator to deploy servers in the resulting reclaimed space. Deploying the router with servers in colocation data centres has turned them from cost centres into revenue-generating ones.

The company said the latest raised funding will be used to develop further the icPhotonics chip. Compass-EOS has talked about a future chip with channels operating at 32Gbps. “We're also investing in innovative software and on the marketing side, focussing on the US market and Japan with a stronger presence there,” says Somekh.

The company also announced it has cut staff. There are now 100 people working at the company compared to 150 employed in March. "Looking at the strategy moving forward we decided to make these adjustments to better fit the objectives and financial plan," says Somekh.

The latest round of investment takes the total amount of funding raised by the start-up to over $162 million. Investors in the latest round include Comcast Ventures and Cisco Systems.